This is not the end.

Death is approaching us all, and it is swift, and it is cruel. It doesn't wait for you to be ready. It doesn't stand back and give you a moment to collect yourself. It is right there, and it only takes. There is no mercy, no grace period - no amount of begging will make it go away.

But, I will tell you.....this is not the end.

This is not the end of the memories. This is not the end of the happiness that filled your heart when you were with her. This is not the end of the little wrinkles at the corners of her mouth when she smiled. This is not the end of how she patted your hand when you were sad. This is not the end of the stories she told about her life. This is the not the end of the way she smelled when you hugged her. This is not the end of the way she made you feel when she said "I love you."

This is the end of the pain. This is the end of the suffering. This is the end of the medicine, and the tubes, and the hospital visits.

But this is not the end of her, oh, no. This is not the end at all. It's just her beginning.

Precipice

"Here in your room where nobody can see
Voices are loud, but seldom clear
Beneath the confusion that's running so deep
There is a promise you must here
The love that seems so far away
Is standing very near
You're on the verge of a miracle
Standing there, oh
You're the on the verge of a miracle
Just waiting to be believed in
Open your eyes and see
You're on the verge of a miracle."

This song has been my heartcry the last week or so. My life is teetering right on the edge of something big. It feels a little like the extreme calm when you know a hurricane or other natural disaster is impending. You can't see it yet, but you can feel it.

A precipice is defined as 'a cliff with a vertical, nearly vertical, or overhanging face' or 'a precarious situation.' One of my favorite books is 'Hind's Feet on High Places.' In it, Much Afraid, the main character, has twisted feet and deformed face and is ostracized by her family. She follows the Good Shepherd up toward the High Places with 2 companions, Sorrow and Suffering. She struggles to climb to the High Places because her feet are so deformed, but the Good Shepherd asks her to press on.

The moment of greatest intensity for me as the reader comes in the chapter entitled 'Great Precipice Injury.' This is an actual place name, but it is also a metaphor for the part of the journey Much Afraid has reached. She has been followed by her evil cousins, who are trying to tell her that the Shepherd is leading her on a wild goose chase and doesn't actually care about her. She desperately wants to hold out hope that the Shepherd is taking her to the true High Places. Great Precipice Injury is where she is basically forced to tune out the voices of her cousins and follow the Shepherd or to give in to her counsins' lies and turn back. [I'll let you read the book to find out what happens....]

I am currently standing on Great Precipice Injury. On Tuesday, I have an appointment with my ENT to determine whether or not I'll have sinus surgery that will essentially change my life. I'm also a living kidney donor, but I can't do the donation until 3 months after I have this surgery. I want to have the sinus surgery so I can feel better, but I am also concerned for the person receiving my kidney, because he's not doing well. I have some other really big decisions riding on whether or not I have the sinus surgery first, or the kidney donation. I'm also concerned about how all these things will impact Juniper, our schedule, and my financial situation.

My brain has been going over and over these things in my head, trying to discern what's 'right.' I heard a sermon this morning that really challenged that. The teacher this morning argued that we don't always love what we think, meaning that sometimes, we think we should want or love something but it's not what's really in our hearts or what we really want. I have to re-calibrate my brain to figure out what it is I really love, what I really want. My heart is like a compass, and sometimes I mistakenly point it toward my head, or what I know. Jesus wants me to point due north, to him and his will for my life, so I can make that my will, too.

I've been trying to balance on this precipice without falling, but I'm starting to think that I just need to let myself fall and see where I land, or if God catches me. I'm sure he will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RF355U7gBg

I Struggle with Forward Motion

Oh, my dear friends....it's been awhile. Thanks for coming back to me. Let me catch you up: I've been busy, the end.

Here's where we are now. I just submitted an application for Juniper for kindergarten. She'll be five years old in June. I'm still struggling with this. I know that five is a humongous milestone, but it just feels particularly surreal for me, and I've been trying to navigate why. I'm just going to ramble a little bit while I wade through these really emotional thoughts.

June was never supposed to happen. She was supposed to be medically impossible. I never anticipated being a mother, so she was a huge surprise - a welcome, happy surprise, but a surprise just the same. That has been a compass for me as a mother - June shouldn't technically be here. She's just the most tremendous gift, the world's greatest surprise, and I try to never take that for granted.

Making the mental shift to 'mother' was such an arduous journey for me. I had to wrap my mind around the medical logistics of it, the risks, the issues that I could encounter, etc., before I could even begin thinking about having to train someone how to be a human being for 18+ years. Once that sunk in (read: once I decided to stop thinking about the medical aspect of it) I was able to get into the right head space and get excited about motherhood. June's dad and I were overjoyed when she was born, and she was perfectly healthy, and I was healthy, and we were all safe. We were a family, and it was good.

Jump forward to when June was around 9 months old....I got a divorce.

You could write an entire book about being a single mother, but I won't, because I can't. Because it's too much. The divorce itself was just the ugliest thing that's ever happened to me. I can point to the moment when I started out on my own with Juniper as one of the top 3 pivotal moments in my life. I was alone, I had to find my own place, I had to get a part time job, I was in graduate school full time....and I was a single mom. It was like a wide-awake nightmare. I grew up so, so much in the space of about 2 months, and I think that time is what is influencing why I am struggling the way that I am with Juniper doing this whole 'growing up' business.

When it was just me and June, we developed this routine. We learned each other really quickly and intimately. I was her hiding place and she was mine. We did everything together, and because I was doing the whole parenting thing alone, I was really protective and experienced everything with her. I think that something happened in my brain during those first few months, before June's dad had any custody, when June and I were hiding out alone, and I made this imaginary world for her. The only thing I can liken it to is Where the Wild Things Are. It's like we ran away, and I built this castle around her and myself and stored up all the best things on the inside and pushed all the bad things to the outside.

Through the past five years, even through shared custody with her dad, and changing jobs, and moving, and being in relationships, I think I've somehow kept us in that stronghold. I stand guard at the gates, sorting through everything that could possibly hurt her, but more importantly, anything that could separate her from me and muck up our utopia. As the years have gone on, I've expanded the castle walls, but still built them to keep the good in and the bad out. It's our safe place, where it's just she and I and we're safe and together and happy.

This next chapter of her life, five years old, means letting her leave the castle. Since she's gone to whatever center or preschool I've worked at since she was 8 months old, I've been able to keep her close to me. Kindergarten means I can't go with her. I can't go be her kindergarten teacher. I can't stand guard anymore to keep the bad things out and pull all the good things in. The gates are opening, and I have to let her bring in some of the bad things to sort out for herself.

In the face of this realization, I have to believe that because she is so, so good, she will see the good, and go out and fight for it like the brave little warrior princess she is. As I'm imagining her do this, I'm moved to tears because she is so brave and so true to herself and I know she will find the good, just as I have found the good and shored it up for her these past (almost) five years. She will begin to see the good and the bad, and she will begin to stand guard for herself and she will build the castle walls bigger to let more of the good in. There will be less bad because she will go out to the bad things and take them by the hand and help them find out how to become good.

I'm trying to trust that June's heart is her biggest and most powerful organ, and that she will use it in the most powerful of ways, because I can't use my heart as a shield for her anymore. Our hearts will be forever intertwined in a way that shall never be undone, because for so long our hearts have carried each other through the painful things of life. We have been each others life raft, and I need to let her go out into deeper water now, on her own. I'm flinging her out into the universe with all my love.

I'll stand here at the gates of our fortress and wait for her to come back, with all the tales of her great adventures.

Love,
Brooke + JuneBug

Multiplied

Lately, I've been listening to a new song by one of my favorite bands, Needtobreathe. They are fantastic, you should take a listen. They manage to cross over various genres and break the mold in every possible way. All of their songs leave me breathless. This particular song, called "Multiplied," has been moving around in my brain and my heart and making some serious waves that must break out and put themselves on paper. The lyrics are as follows:

"Your love is like radiant diamonds, bursting inside us, we cannot contain
Your love will surely come find us, like blazing wildfires, singing your name
God of mercy, sweet love of mine,
I have surrendered to your design
May this offering stretch across the sky
And these hallelujahs be multiplied."

About 2 weeks ago, as I was struggling with my friends and my family through some very difficult terrain, I heard this song for the first time. It has moved me in an inexplicable way. I wish I could put my finger on it - the music? The harmonies? The beat? The lyrics? I don't know. What I do know is that I can't stop listening to it, and when I hear it, I get that familiar lump in my throat and I feel like I'm transcending everything - all the pain and the sorrow and the suffering and everything. These words have been making their rounds back and forth between my head and my heart, doing some serious renovating and remodeling. I'm going to attempt to put this into words, although I'm sure I shall fail miserably.

Recently, some of my closest friends have experienced the ultimate depths of heartache and sorrow. One friend is coping with the loss of a close friend. Another friend is working with family to deal with a tragic loss. Another friend is at a tremendous crossroads about her path in life. These experiences bring out the worst in us, I have come to learn. We find that our strength is stretched in ways we never imagined it could be. Pain has the power to pluck us up from our comfortable places and shake us so we descend into the abyss like salt from a shaker. Suddenly, our shoulders are sagging and we are so ragged and worn we scarcely recognize ourselves.

I've spoken here about my faith before. Anyone who knows me knows that it's a defining feature of my life. I'm not an "Everything happens for a reason" kind of Christian, nor am I a "God has a plan" kind of Christian, nor am I a "Let go and let God" kind of Christian. I'm not going to try to make you feel better with some silly words. I don't know what kind of believer I am. I do know that most of the things that I believe make people uncomfortable, because I'm a little radical. I have really struggled for answers for my friends who have been facing life's biggest challenges and overwhelming pain. The truth is, I don't have answers. What I do have....is this song.

"Your love is like radiant diamonds, bursting inside us, we cannot contain...."
To me, this sounds like the experience of pain. It bursts insides us and sometimes we feel as if we may explode from the sheer weight of our sorrow. God takes this pain - in whatever way you allow God to take your pain - and holds you and caresses you and polishes you until you are bursting with love like diamonds: radiant and impossibly beautiful. It may take months; it may take years. The process may last your entire life. It is a process.

"Your love will surely come find us, like blazing wildfires, singing your name..."
Pain seeks us out. It attacks us when we are least prepared. It waits in the corner until we've finally let our guards down and given up the fight for the day, then it pounces. It's all consuming, like a California wildfire. Picture for a moment being trapped in a fire like that. I think there is a point where you give up and think, "This is the end." Then you look up, and one brave firefighter is breaking through the flames and shining a flashlight and looking....looking....looking for you. Shouting your name like her life depends upon finding you and bringing you out of the blaze. You've been found, and you've been saved.

"God of mercy, sweet love of mine, I have surrendered to your design..."
I will never get tired of thinking of God as my love. It has nothing to do with human love. It has everything to do with the idea that, at the end of the day, even if I have let every single human being down, there is something that remains true to me, regardless of my ridiculous and thoughtless mistakes. As far as God's design, I don't mean "predestination." I mean that we are created in God's image, so our pain, our loss, our depths of despair are NOT places that we travel to alone. We have the constant company of the most eternal vibration of love and light, the ultimate antidote to that horrible poison, pain.

"May this offering stretch across the sky, and these hallelujahs be multiplied..."
I think that, sometimes, giving up our pain, loosening our grip on it and throwing it into the void, can be something of an offering. We're finally dragging ourselves out into the light and saying okay, I think I'm ready to let go of this. Maybe we're not actually ready, but this initial gesture is such a violent thrill of release, such an earthquake of bottled-up emotions, that we're ready to begin the process. When we can begin this process, perhaps it is our way of shouting 'hallelujah!' to the universe. Maybe, every time we are able open our fingers and release a little bit of whatever is hurting us, we are crying out to God, "Thank you! Thank you for creating a space for me to be broken, to be only parts and not the whole, to be a fraction of myself! Thank you for running into the fire to save me when no one else could save me. Thank you for gently rounding out my rough and painful edges so I could be radiant like a diamond. Thank you for being a light in dark places, when all other lights have gone dim." We learn to say this over and over again, and our faith thrives through our expressions of grief, loss, pain, and less-than. Maybe our imperfections make us strong. Let these hallelujahs be multiplied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGF-MGGLpB0

The Psychology of 'Frozen'

I love the movie 'Frozen.' I bet you can guess who loves it more....my little JuneBug. She sings along in the most hilarious monotone, singing the same line over and over again: "Let the storm rage OOOOHHHHN the cold never bothered me annnyyyyywaaaaaay!"

I have watched this movie so many times I lost count. I like that it isn't like traditional Disney movies in that the hero (er, heroine) is a woman. And not just one woman - sisters! There's also the perfect response to Anna and Hans' request to get married: "You can't marry a man you just met." Thank you, Disney! You're getting with the times.

There's something that really irks me about this movie, however. Now, as a precursor, I know that this is a fictional story and that Disney has never paid much attention to the psychological ramifications of their characters' stories. Regardless, I think that the psychology of 'Frozen' deserves a little bit more conversation.....

First of all, Elsa. She was born with this pretty cool power, to make snow and ice with her hands. She and her sister share some very special moments making Olaf the snowman and turning their ballroom into a winter wonderland. However, when Anna gets a little too excited, Elsa, in her haste, tries to save her and ends up striking her in the head with her ice powers. Her parents have to rush to the trolls to erase the memories of magic, and Anna is scarred forever with the strip of white in her hair. What the movie doesn't really emphasize is how Elsa is also scarred forever. I'm sorry, but if I wounded my sister to the point where she almost died, I would be pretty traumatized, especially if it was accidental. The movie glosses over that, and jumps to their parents' stigmatizing Elsa's power, basically shutting their entire castle down for fear of her, not to mention the extremely dangerous phrase her parents teach her: "Conceal, don't feel." Then they basically close her off from the world in her room, alone with no toys and no contact with the outside world. If that happened now, the parents would be arrested and it would be plastered all over the news.

Anna, on the other hand, goes about her life as if nothing had happened, because in her memory-loss induced state (thanks, trolls!), nothing actually happened. She prances through the hallways, talking to pictures, begging Elsa to come out and play, not knowing that Elsa could potentially kill her. O.k., so that's exaggerating a little....but is it really? Anyway, the years go on, Elsa still hasn't come out of her room, and Anna is still talking to pictures and running around an essentially empty castle, singing.

Cue the sadness.

Anna and Elsa's parents go on a trip. As a parting gift, Elsa gets gloves, because hey! let's make you feel even more weird about your magic powers before we leave on this trip that we might not return from and ostracize you just a little bit more. We don't see their parents saying goodbye to Anna. SPOILER ALERT: Anna and Elsa's parents die on their trip. Their boat is swallowed by the ocean during a storm. You can kind of gauge based on the physical appearance of the girls how many years have gone by between the 'accident' and their parents dying. I would say approximately 10 years. Maybe 12.

Soooooo Anna has been running around an empty castle, singing to her sister through closed doors, without a clue as to why her sister won't come out and play with her. For all she knows, Elsa could be dead. Elsa has been shunned, emotionally destroyed, and shut down, all without any human contact whatsoever. This has been happening for 10 TO 12 YEARS. Then their parents die in a sudden and unexpected accident.

Doesn't this sort of sound like the beginning of some kind of horror movie??

Moving onto coronation day. Anna is awoken on coronation day by one of the servants. She leaps out of bed and runs around the castle singing excitedly about interacting with real people again. Can we take a moment to wonder how Anna even knows how to interact with real people anymore? They reduced the staff in the house so much so that Anna's only companions growing up were paintings. I'm sure the king and queen were far too busy running the kingdom to spend any time with their children. Elsa was busy being locked in her room, so Anna really grew up with no playmates or companions. How does she even know how to talk to people? And then she starts singing about meeting a husband! I suppose in the land of Disney, this makes perfect sense, because most of the other Disney princesses fell in love in less than 24 hours.

While Anna is prancing around using her brilliant imagination to talk to her future non-husband, Elsa is busy reciting the very wise (NOT) life advice her parents left her with before they died: "Conceal, don't feel," "Don't let them in, don't let them know," "Put on a show," etc. I'm wondering how Elsa hasn't developed Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities) or Schizophrenia or another mental illness. She has basically been in solitary confinement for at least a decade, with only her powers and the memory of almost killing her sister to keep her company. What has she been doing in there? (Let me just tell you, I would be sleeping.)

The actual coronation party. Here's how Frozen really should have portrayed this scene: Elsa would be in the corner, having a panic attack, and Anna would be talking to the painting of Joan of Arc. Neither of them would be able to carry on a human conversation. Dancing? Out of the question. How/when did they learn? Addressing the whole crowd? Not a chance. Neither of them has addressed an actual human being in years.

I'm not going to go into the rest of the movie, but it just keeps getting better....or maybe it's worse? Kristoff was raised by rocks, so he and Anna are a match made in heaven. Elsa made her way up to the most isolated spot in the land, which makes perfect sense. "People? Nah, I'd rather hang out with snow." Kristoff and Anna should have gotten married with the trolls and just stayed there, being weird together, and Elsa should have been allowed to stay in the mountains, 'letting it go' for the rest of time.

Mother

As Mother's Day, my daughter's 4th birthday, and the end of my first extremely trying year at my job approaches, I find myself overwhelmed by all that I have accomplished, and both encouraged and terrified at what I am capable of doing with my life. I feel tremendous power yet tremendous fear at what kind of woman I am becoming. The sense of pride in my life is immeasurable, that is certainly true, especially when I look at my daughter and the wonderful creature she is becoming or when I tell people that I live with my mom and tears come to my eyes because our relationship is one of a kind.

The fear, though....the fear just sits in the corner, watching this mounting pride. I can see it calculating its next move, looking for a foothold for destruction and pain. I never feel overwhelmed by it, but I am very aware of it. I try not to let the fear overcome the pride and the capabilities I possess. I try to look at my life, especially the past year, and see that what I have done is greater than any fear that ever existed. And yet....fear.

Then yesterday, I saw this picture that my mom had posted on her facebook page. It's a close-up of her with my grandmother, and as I gazed at both of them, beaming their megawatt smiles right into my soul, a lump formed in my throat, just as it is now as I write this. Their stunning faces, filled with wrinkles and stories, tremendous love and indescribable pain, mirror me and my story, my love, and my pain. I see in their eyes a level of courage and determination that I once thought I might never know, but realize I already possess. I notice in their smiles the kind of optimism that the world has tried to shut down, but I radiate with that 'delusional optimism.' I can feel their love for one another practically bursting out of the picture, and I feel that love rain down on me like that first powerful springtime soak that starts the process of new life.

The fear I sometimes ache with, from the overwhelming weight of life and womanhood, is staring me down from its hiding place in the corner, but as I look at this picture, I laugh in that direction. The women before me, who have so gracefully conquered this life and the same fear I face now, are strong pillars of love and light that have never ceased to guide me through the darkest storms. The women in this picture are strength embodied, pictures of grace so powerful they make lions seem tame. This is my history. These women and I are intertwined through our histories, our red-hot red-headed tempers, our love and our loss, and most importantly, our courage.

We have known divorce, death, physical suffering, job loss, loss of children, the pain of moving away from those you love, and loss of self. Yet, we have also known unity, love, beauty, growth, strength, new friendships, togetherness, and self-empowerment. The most important part is that we have known them together. We have forged the bonds of love and life hand-in-hand, knowing that we are never alone, even though sometimes distance may pull us away from one another.

I look into the eyes of my powerful yet incredibly sweet mother and I am thankful that she taught me how to love everyone, no matter their station, class, creed, or spirituality.

I look into the eyes of my sister and I see strength that no one else on earth could possibly possess. I see her fiery will to succeed, to prove everyone wrong, and I am thankful that she taught me how to be true to myself.

I look into the eyes of my beautiful grandmother, who still calls me her baby and is constantly reminding me of how proud she is that I am hers, and I see courage that goes rushing headfirst into battle every single day. Despite some of the physical difficulties she faces, her unfailing courage and her dedication to her family are second to none.

With the power, sweetness, strength, and courage of these women at my side, I take one last glance into the corner where fear is now cowering, and I smile. I smile because, this Mother's Day, this year, I am not afraid. I know where I come from. I am a mother from a long line of radiant, powerful mothers, and I am fully capable of guiding myself wherever I want to go.

Lenten Beauty

For Lent this year, I am giving up makeup. It's not altogether too difficult, as I only wear a little, sometimes more depending on the occasion. The tough part is giving up all the negative thoughts and actions associated with makeup, namely poor self-confidence, shallow vanity, and a worldly self-concept. Those are hefty things, I know. Let me walk you through my motivation for all this.

Since I was young, I have been obsessed with the idea of beauty, specifically made-up beauty. I loved to watch soap operas with my mom because the women were always made up so beautifully. I would stop at makeup counters in department stores and just stand in awe at the women putting the makeup on. Even in middle school and high school, I would watch infomercials about makeup because it fascinated me so much. I went through periods of time during high school when I would experiment with heavy makeup, wanting to see how much I could change my outward appearance, hoping maybe perhaps it would make me a different person underneath. What did I want to change? I still don't know. In college, I started wearing less and less makeup because it began to bother my skin. I became more comfortable in my facial nakedness pretty much out of necessity. I still enjoyed putting makeup on other people and watching other people do their own makeup, though. I loved the dramatic transformation; looking like one person one minute and after a few brush strokes and dabs with sponges, looking like someone else completely.

All this fed into a rather negative view of myself that accelerated throughout college and fully developed prior to having my daughter. I was unhappy with the choices I was making in life so I tried to supplement with makeup and became more and more obsessed with my appearance. It was only after I had Juniper that I started gaining confidence in myself through my abilities versus through my appearance. I became encouraged by all the things I could accomplish as a mother and as a woman, and as I went through my divorce, my inner strength slowly became the epicenter of my beauty. I started to realize, through compliments about my appearance on good days and the presence of energy and a deep sense of personal mission, that beauty does in fact begin in the soul and radiate outward.

So the old saying isn't true. Beauty is NOT only skin deep. Beauty is anything you want it to be. For me, beauty is strength. Beauty is resilience. Beauty is kindness. Beauty is honesty. Beauty is integrity. You can't purchase it at Sephora, or in the makeup aisle at Target. Reading magazines won't give you any secrets or tricks to beauty, and you won't even find it in the latest skin care line.

For Lent, I've chosen to give up so much more than makeup. I've chosen to give up that negative self-image. I've chosen to give up finding beauty in a bottle or in a magazine. I've chosen to find beauty in the One who created my beauty specifically for me. This beauty transcends all else:

"Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious."

"She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed."

This. THIS is beauty:

"Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come."

So in the morning, instead of blush, I will put on strength and dignity. Instead of eyeliner, I will put on the beauty of a gentle spirit. Instead of mascara, I will put on pleasantness and peace. Instead of looking at the mirror and admiring my worldly mask, I will look into my heart and see that what has been planted there is good, and I will praise the Lover of my soul.