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Blessed are the Pure in Heart

Ethan’s Mom: We have participated in baby dedications for each of our five children. Our church allows for special moments to present the new baby, acknowledge the family’s commitment to teach the child about God, and ask that the congregation participate in the spiritual formation of the child. Some of the details differ based on the pastor or children’s minister involved, but they always included a presentation of a certificate and a tiny New Testament. Early on, I asked our children’s minister at that time if Ethan could still get a New Testament, and she assured me he could and suggested we do a full baby dedication for both boys, just as we would if Ethan was still living.

One thing we had to decide in preparing for the dedication was what Bible verses we wanted to designate as special “life verses” for each baby. This can be a bit intimidating under normal circumstances, but finding an appropriate verse for Ethan’s dedication was even more daunting. Ethan’s dad was the one who came up with the one that felt right:

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Matthew 5:8

As with many things in the Bible, there are multiple layers to this verse. The Beatitudes in particular are more complex than they appear. This verse reminds us that Ethan, being pure in heart, is in the presence of God right now. He can see God.

But I hadn’t considered how this verse might also speak to another way Ethan’s life and death has changed me until studying the Beatitudes at BSF earlier this year.

I believe I have written before about counseling and how that has been an important part of healing for me. One thing that I particularly appreciate is how my counselor pushes me to grow more comfortable with the mystery of God. She has helped me work through anger that was preventing me from seeing ways that “heaven and earth collide,” as she says. While anger is an expected and understandable emotion, getting stuck in it leads to bitterness. When bitterness was taking root in my heart, I was blinded to the miracles that were happening around me, even in the darkest of valleys.

When giving his BSF lecture on Matthew 5, my brother-in-law compared looking for God with sin in our hearts to looking through a dirty windshield. When we repent of the sin which clouds our view, we can see God more clearly. That illustration has stayed with me because it was such an accurate description of my own experience. The BSF notes beautifully describe what it is like to see through a “clear windshield”:

“The pure in heart will see God today. They find Him in the Scripture they read daily. They look for God’s handiwork in daily events and nature. They recognize God’s image imprinted upon their neighbor, their spouse, their child, and themselves. They recognize God’s Spirit moving in the seemingly mundane and in miraculously life-changing moments.”

Here is a particularly mundane example from recent memory. One day during the heavy season from January to March, I went on a much needed walk. It was one of those walks that ended up having a lot of running portions to work out some pent up emotions, and I was getting low on both energy and hope as I huffed and puffed up a hill at the end of my route. A fellow runner approached and called out to me, “This hill sucks, but you’re doing great!” Maybe it sounds strange, but I immediately had a feeling that this message of encouragement was not really about running up a hill, nor was it really from a fellow runner. I truly believe it was a message from God to encourage me through the coming months of intensified grief, which it did.

Being a mother to Ethan has taught me more about seeing God than any other single experience in my life. I cannot look at the falling leaves, seeds, flowers, dragonflies, or lightning bugs in the same way again. I catch my breath when a train whistles at the exact moment I need to hear one. There are simply too many examples to list.

A precious baby with a hole in his heart has helped me learn about the importance of being pure in heart and looking for God everywhere, even in the deepest pain and darkest nights. Truly, this is our Father’s world, and God does “shine in all that’s fair” — if we have hearts to see.

“This is my Father’s world,
And to my list’ning ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.

“This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—
His hand the wonders wrought.

“This is my Father’s world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker’s praise.

“This is my Father’s world:
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.

“This is my Father’s world:
Oh, let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.

“This is my Father’s world,
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.”

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A World Where There Are Octobers

Ethan’s Mom: The world has been so, so crazy this year. I haven’t posted anything since the pandemic erupted. The NBA cancelled the rest of their season on March 11th, the day after we marked three years since Ethan’s death. To me, that was the first time I really noticed something major was going on, possibly because for the first two weeks of March, my brain is in 2017 more than in the present time. Usually, it takes the rest of the month to work through the feelings and flashbacks before I start to feel normal again. However, this year instead of a period of recovery, I found myself in an impromptu homeschool situation with 4 kids, aged 3 through 9, with limited supplies of milk, bread, and toilet paper.

I told myself this was no big deal. After all, no one I loved had died. That’s what you think after you’ve lived through child loss; all other crises just pale in comparison. We were safe, my husband had a stable job that easily adapted to working from home, and I had more time with the kids. It was a huge blessing that our spring weather was perfect this year — we spent hours on the trampoline and on after-dinner family walks. Of course, I was worried for friends in the medical community, my “mature” family members and friends, and others whose world was shaken far worse than mine. But how long would this really last anyway? I thought surely this virus would be behind us by time to return to school, and until then, I would do my best to steward this unexpected season of cancellations and extra togetherness.

We all know that didn’t happen. As the pandemic dragged on, I began to really feel the weariness and feared there was no end in sight. Indeed with the summer came rising virus levels in our state, and vigorous debate about school re-opening was everywhere. Just like everyone else, I was distraught over making the “right choice” for our children. The constant internal debate was exhausting. After considering all options, we made a decision. Returning to school five days a week is definitely the best decision we can make right now for our individual children and family, we said. OK, let’s do this. We are all in.

Oh wait, make that 2 days a week, as the school system decided a week before the pushed-back starting date that we would be on a staggered schedule. On those days, everything about “back to school” looks different anyway. No visitors are allowed, so I definitely won’t be meeting my “eat lunch at school” every month goal. In fact, the kids aren’t even going to be eating in the cafeteria. No mystery readers or birthday treats. No playground for my little kindergartener to look forward to exploring. Masks hiding all the smiles from teachers and friends.

Most days, I feel like I am in a Google classroom twilight zone that will never end. This feeling of neverending-ness was reinforced when the week before our 2nd attempt to return to school 5 days a week was cancelled by the school system. They backpedaled to 4 days a week for elementary, no change in staggered schedules for middle and high school. So tomorrow (fingers crossed!) my kids will double their days at school and will be back full time by mid-October. Maybe. I hope.

We were also supposed to return to onsite worship at our church this week. We had one other false start earlier in the summer, so I was not really holding my breath. In fact, we received word late Saturday afternoon that all of the activities, including live and streamed worship services, were cancelled due to 2 staff members testing positive for coronavirus. There have been some major changes at our church this summer. One change was particularly painful for our immediate family: we are saying goodbye to a minister who ran into the darkness and sat with us in our grief when so many were scared to enter in. When I heard the news of this development, I felt the ground shift under my feet again. Nothing feels right, and the future is totally uncertain.

Other things we depend on to mark the seasons of our lives are missing or very different this year. Football is delayed and for a while, it looked like my husband’s beloved Cornhuskers wouldn’t even play a down this year. No pumpkin patches, and no school field trips to the farm. Everything else in our yearly, monthly, and daily routines have changed so much that, subconsciously, I was waiting for someone to cancel fall and leave us in the humid, hazy days of a never ending summer.

But today when I opened the door on my way to visit Ethan’s grave for the first time in a while, a cool breeze greeted me. I decided to swing by Starbucks to pick up a pumpkin spice latte on the way to visit my little boy. Starbucks is a rare treat as I just cannot bring myself to pay that much for coffee, as I am a relatively new and unsophisticated coffee drinker. But today, driving with the windows down and the sunshine pouring through the trees, it was money well spent. I just kept thinking to myself as I drove, “It actually feels like fall is coming, it seemed like it would never come.” My heart felt lighter than it has in days, just with the dropping of the temperature and humidity.

Like one of my literary heroines, Anne of Green Gables, I am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. I praise the God who hung the sun and placed the earth in a specific orbit around it in order to provide us with changing seasons and fresh starts. There is so much symbolism in creation that speaks to eternal truths. Each season brings its own joys and challenges and revelation of God’s heart toward us. Fall brings images of the farmer bringing in his harvest. The light is sharper and more precious as the days shorten. Cozy clothing wraps us in warmth. Even jack-o-lanterns can be used as a metaphor for the gospel of Jesus Christ, an activity my first grade Sunday school kids enjoy every year.

But most of all, autumn reminds me that God keeps His promises even when it seems like this life is a never ending stretch of loss and heartache. If not for autumn and winter, how would we know the joy of springtime, as the earth wakes from its sleep into newness of life? We can lean into this season because it doesn’t last forever, because spring is indeed coming. No matter if all the man-made ways we mark the calendar do not come to pass, God will bring the change of seasons and, one day, the redemption of His entire creation. Just as fall finally arrived when I had almost given up, spring will come again, too. In the same way, at the exact right time, Jesus will come. He keeps His promises — all of them.

You Keep Your Promises by JJ Heller

Sandals in the closet
Jackets by the door
Orange, red, life and death
Scattered ’round the feet of the sycamore
The waiting hands of winter
Catch us when we fall
Is it just me? I can’t believe
The green of spring was ever here at all

You keep Your promises
You keep Your promises
I might not see it yet
You keep Your promises

Everyone I care for
Just like every perfect dream
Withers, fades, and drifts away
Feels like we’re all falling with the leaves

You keep Your promises
You keep Your promises
I might not see it yet
You keep Your promises

There is hope within the breaking of the heart of every seed
And I know You feel the aching at the end of all good things
I believe in restoration, I believe that You redeem
Because I know somehow the sycamore will bloom again in spring

You keep Your promises
You keep Your promises
I might not see it yet
There will be life again
You keep Your promises

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Weep Until You Have No Strength to Weep

Ethan’s Mom: This week was pretty weird in our BSF study of People of the Promised Land. The assigned chapters in 1 Samuel included Saul meeting with a medium (1 Sam. 28:3-25) (that is a whole other post for a different day, and probably not one written by me) and the study questions included one about experiencing the silence of God (also a tender subject with my husband and I). Ethan’s dad had an intense conversation in his small group for that portion of his discussion last night, speaking up about how the silence cannot always be explained by unrepentant sin driving a wedge between you and God. My group did not take that direction in answering that question, but I had my own moment of “is this really how we are going to answer this question?” a little later on in our discussion.

Here’s the background (1 Sam. 30): David and his men were between a rock and a hard place – they had been living in Philistia, hiding from Saul and deceiving the Philistine king Achish into thinking they were allies against Israel. For a minute, it seems David is going to be conscripted into fighting against Israel, but God mercifully provides away out of the bed that David has made before he has to lie in it. His men return to their home base at Ziklag to find that an enemy clan has burned it to the ground and kidnapped the wives and children of all the soldiers, including David. Verse 4 says, “So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.” That verse is what I wrote down to answer the first question on that section: “Describe the scene at Ziklag. How did David and his men respond?”

No one immediately jumped to field that question, and my group leader tried rephrasing it. “What was the first thing David does when he returns to this scene?” she asks. I replied, “wept until he had no strength to weep.” She seemed a little surprised and said, “Well, yes, but… what was next? What did he do? In verse 6?” Someone else provided the answer she was looking for, that David found strength in the Lord. She follows up with “Then in verse 9?” Someone else answers, “David inquired of God.”

First of all, if someone “does something next” that is not, by definition, the thing that he does first. But I was taken aback by more than mere semantics. Glossing over the fact that David’s initial reaction was to weep until he had no strength left to weep totally discounts his grief over losing his family. Yes, they were kidnapped and eventually rescued, but initially David didn’t know their fate. For all he knows, he will never see his family again, and he is leading hundreds of men who will never see their families again.

Let’s allow them to weep before we are demanding that they find strength in God, shall we?

I firmly believe after my experience, watching my husband grieve, and reading several books/memoirs by fellow mourners, that the tears must come first, then the strength in the Lord, and then the inquiring of God.

In the lecture that followed, the teaching leader made a statement that struck me as she was summarizing the divergent paths of Saul and David. “No one drifts toward God.” While we do not earn God’s mercy or grace towards us, faith does require a conscious choice to seek God. This has never before been so clear to me. Sometimes I feel like not only am I not drifting to Him, I am fighting against a strong current of pain and doubt as I struggle to swim towards Him. But in those initial months of shock, confusion, and disbelief, I could do nothing but be tossed by the waves. I could not even ask why or articulate to God that I was angry or sad or anything.  It was a terrible place to be, but I couldn’t just sit up and say, “let me go and find strength in God.”

Choosing to trust God and find strength in him requires more effort than I had for quite some time.  But eventually, I could.  I think I am just now maybe beginning to move to the inquiring of God stage — to trust that He will not only keep me from drowning in a pit of despair (finding strength in Him) but also guide me into an abundant life as I inquire of Him what to do next (wow, that was even just hard to type, I am definitely just beginning to move into that stage!)

So I want to encourage you, whoever you are, that if you are faced with a devastating loss, it is OK to weep until you have no strength left to weep.  Don’t let anyone rush you through this — the time frame that is right for you is known only by you and the Lord.  You do not have to find strength in God or have stalwart trust that He has a plan for you in the midst of this tragedy.  There will come a time when you will have to look to someone or something for strength to resume your life, and at that point, you will have to make a conscious choice to find your strength in God.  He will strengthen you and eventually you will then be able to inquire of God — looking for redemption in the midst of your tragedy and discerning “what is His good, pleasant, and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2) for your life, including your life after loss.

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You Can’t Move Me Beyond This, but You Can Sit Beside Me Through It

“There is no great loss without some small gain.” Little House on the Prairie

Ethan’s Mom: I wrote this quote down after listening to Little House on the Prairie on audiobook with my kids. At the very end of the book, the Ingalls family is forced to leave their homestead after they had worked so hard to build and furnish their house, to set up their farm, and to invest in their future. Pa had bought potatoes to use as seeds to grow a potato crop the next year, but they could not take them in their wagon to the next destination. So, they ate the potatoes in one great feast. Laura describes how delicious those potatoes were in great detail, and then Pa says, “There is no great loss without some small gain.” My eyes were filling with tears as I drove home from ballet lessons, listening to the last chapters where they say their final goodbyes to the little house. It seemed so unfair, and I couldn’t believe Pa would be grateful for the potatoes. It literally was “small potatoes” compared to the difficulty he was facing with his family (terrible pun, I know).

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this lately (as you could have probably guessed from my last post on lessons I learned from Ruth). I have been reading a book called, Empty Cradle, Broken Heart. It is kind of a What to Expect When You are Expecting for infant loss. This is not written from a Christian worldview, so it has some sections that have been difficult to read. However, it mostly has been validating to read about commonalities across parents who have endured similar tragedies. I came across this passage the other day:

“After your baby dies, recognizing something positive is a way to make meaning out of enduring this tragedy. At first, you may be too distraught or too angry to even consider anything positive. But when you can try to assess the salvage from the wreckage… people might get philosophical, offering that ‘things happen for a reason’ or ‘whatever happens is for your higher good.’ But finding the positives and applying philosophies are tasks that only you can undertake, when you are ready, and not when you’re in shock, infuriated, or in the depths of despair. Plus these sayings are more easily applied to trials such as taking two years to find a job, when, in the end, you land the perfect position. But a long job hunt is not a traumatic bereavement. There is just no comparison.”

Amen and amen.

Later that night, I read that day’s entry (November 4th) in Streams in the Desert. The devotional used the experience of being in captivity as an analogy for an exceptionally difficult circumstance you cannot control or escape. That immediately resonated with me. I remember telling Ethan’s dad on several occasions during the early days that I felt like I had been sentenced to a lifetime in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. There is no end and no escape. I do, in fact, feel like a captive.

The entry goes on to say:

“In order to receive any benefit from our captivity, we must accept the situation and be determined to make the best of it. Worrying over what we have lost or what has been taken from us will not make things better but will only prevent us from improving what remains. We will only serve to make the rope around us tighter if we rebel against it.”

Those words still sting, 20 months later. Any mention of acceptance will bring a physical reaction from deep within my gut. I don’t want to accept this. As many times as I have read that accepting the death doesn’t mean condoning or agreeing with it, I still don’t want to accept that my baby died because that feels like I admitting that I am OK with it. I will never, ever be OK with it.

Even so, I am trying to work on finding the small gain within my great loss. I wrote about my desire for redemption, and how God impressed on my heart that redeeming this situation is not my job. I wanted to share these words with those are walking through grief with friends or family members — You can’t redeem this situation either.

The entry ends with these words, “Make this story your own, dear captive, and God will give you ‘songs of the night’ (Job 35:10) and will turn your ‘blackness into dawn’ (Amos 5:8).” All of the parents in this horrible “club” have to find a way to make this story their own, and as much as you would like to help hurry the process along for your grieving loved one, you really cannot make it go any faster.

If you find yourself now sitting beside someone grieving a child, take care not to step into the role of finding a silver lining or interpreting what God means to do in and through their situation. It certainly is not as easy as finding the magic Bible verse or suggesting that “everything happens for a reason.” Doing that is a defense mechanism for you, not encouragement for the mourner. I know it takes courage to sit with me in my grief. I know that you would rather think that everything happens for a reason because somehow that means there is a reason it won’t happen to you. Just like me, my loss forces you to acknowledge some uncomfortable truths about life and God.

If you have the courage, walk alongside as they find their way. Pray for them and for the discernment to know how to encourage them. Help with surviving children or errands or whatever you can do to allow your loved one to do their “grief work” as counselors like to call it. Remind them, as often as possible, that you love them. Love is, after all, the greatest thing we can give.

“And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13, Amplified Version).

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Some Lessons from the Book of Ruth

Ethan’s Mom: Confession – two weeks ago when I saw that our next Bible Study Fellowship unit was on Ruth, I was not super excited. Great, I thought. This is just a love story where everything works out for everyone, nothing like my life. Turns out, I had a lot to learn from this not-so-easy love story. So much, in fact, that not only was it the focus of BSF, it was also a focal point of a book I was reading with a small group of intergenerational ladies at church. It seems God really wanted me to pay attention to these folks, and I think I can see why.

For starters, let’s all take a moment to acknowledge that Naomi is not just a supporting actress in this drama. There is so much that Ruth’s mother-in-law and their relationship can teach us. I had not really paid close attention to her before, but then again, I had never identified with her grief before March 2017. First, she went to a foreign land with her husband and sons. Then her husband dies, and years later both boys marry and then they die as well. I think in order to familiarize modern readers with the cultural challenges that Naomi faced, the message that comes through most loudly is that Naomi was in a pickle because she had no income or that she was in despair because she was going to go hungry. No doubt the financial woes and uncertainty were a huge stresser, but that is not the whole story. She is grieving the loss of THREE people in her immediate family. The only three people in her immediate family. For the sake of argument, let’s assume she and Elimelech had an arranged marriage and maybe his death didn’t break her heart. Maybe she was so mad at him for moving the family to Moab that she felt like she lost her meal ticket but not her happiness. You can’t tell me, though, that she wasn’t torn to pieces over losing her sons. One of the sweetest relationships that has developed since our loss is my friendship with an older lady at church whose adult son died unexpectedly. The loss of an adult child may be different in some ways than losing an infant, but there is deep, unrelenting grief in both situations. That makes me feel like I can identify with Naomi in a way I never really identified with Ruth.

For instance, it may sound a little melodramatic when Naomi arrives back in Israel and demands that people call her “Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.” (Rule 1:20).  Here she is, rolling back into her old neighborhood, seeing people she hasn’t seen in more than 10 years. There was no post office, much less Instagram. I’m thinking no one knows what has befallen her. She is likely telling the story over and over as she sees more and more people who inquire after her family or want to be introduced to this foreign woman she has with her. She is likely finding out that some of her old friends have bucket loads of grandchildren and are totally set for life. She has made a long, arduous journey with plenty of time to reflect on her situation and wishes that her husband or sons were travelling with her. I don’t blame her a bit for saying “I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty.” This is not a suck-it-up-buttercup kind of a moment; this is understandable anguish.

Do you know what is missing after this little pity party? A rebuke. Thanks to my husband for pointing that out to me. Naomi may not be theologically on target, but she’s being honest. This says to me that God can handle honest, even bitter honest, maybe even especially bitter honest. The important thing is not what she said when overwhelmed with sorrow when her arrival caused a “stirring” among the women in her old neighborhood. The important thing is that she had made the decision in Ruth 1:7 to “set out on the road that would take (her) back to the land of Judah.” She made the decision to move towards God in the midst of her fear and depression. It didn’t erase her pain immediately, but she was moving, one step at a time, toward the one who could bring redemption to her terrible circumstances.

Redemption. It’s a huge theme in the book of Ruth. It’s a huge theme in our lives walking in the shadowlands. Aside from the foreshadowing of Jesus as our kinsman-redeemer and all the beauty that entails, the story has moments where the tragic circumstances of Naomi and Ruth are redeemed by Boaz’s actions.

If there is one thing that parents whose babies have died want, it is for their loss to be redeemed in some way. There are bereaved mothers who have launched non-profits, written books, organized fundraisers or remembrance walks, etc., etc. We desperately want something good to come out of this because ultimately that gives us a way to share our little one’s life and legacy with others.

Side note: This is NOT the same as finding a reason for the tragedy – do not tell me that Ethan died so that this or that would happen. He is not just a pawn in God’s big chess game, and all the promises in the Bible that I can claim apply to him, too. That’s a whole other post, one that is probably better suited for my husband to analyze in this space.

Anyway, I have struggled with this thought since a few months after Ethan’s death. I have had ideas on how I can honor his memory, but nothing seems big or important enough to qualify as redemption, except things that seem impossible. I felt like God was saying to me through the study of Ruth that it is not up to me to do the redeeming. That’s His job.

Ruth has left her homeland and her family of origin after losing her husband. She lost so much. There is no reason to believe that she and Naomi were walking up the incline to Bethlehem talking about how great they were going to have it once they arrived. I’m quite sure they weren’t discussing how they might fit into the lineage of the Messiah. They were just doing what they felt was right in going back to the Promised Land and to the one true God. When they arrive, Ruth says she will go out and work for their food, and that’s just what she did. She went out and gleaned in Boaz’s field. Nothing glamorous, but she worked so hard on the task at hand that Boaz took notice of her work ethic and her devotion to Naomi.

God took her day-in-and-day-out obedience in the most mundane task, and out of that He brought redemption to Ruth’s life, Naomi’s life, the nation of Israel, and ultimately all humanity. I felt like He was pressing upon my heart that He wants my day-in-day-out obedience in the mundane tasks of mothering my four children on earth, loving my husband, and pouring into relationships with friends and family. Out of that work I have set before me, He will set into motion a plan to bring redemption in this lifetime to our loss, our pain, and our grief.

The story ends with Ruth and Boaz’s son, Obed, sitting in Naomi’s lap. Don’t you know that woman loved her grandson something fierce? I just imagine them having the sweetest relationship. She and Ruth must have just stared into his squishy baby face and delighted in counting his fingers and toes. They must have marveled at their miracle baby as he learned to talk and walk. That would have been such a blessing on its own, but then we find out that Obed has a son named Jesse. Jesse has a son named David, who becomes the king of Israel and a man after God’s own heart. From David, the lineage goes straight down to Jesus. There is so much more redemption coming than Ruth or Naomi could ever have imagined, and they don’t even see it in their lifetimes. Even the possibility that God can do more with our situation than we could plan, even more than we can imagine, gives me such hope. Now I am going to bed in preparation for another day of gleaning tomorrow, and I will rest in the freedom that the rest of our story is in much better hands than mine.

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Grief is like a Hurricane

Ethan’s Mom: Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact on the Gulf Coast. I lived in Long Beach, Mississippi, from birth until college. In 2005, I was in my last year of graduate school in Nashville. My parents and grandparents still lived in Long Beach. We all watched the meteorologists as they predicted the path of this monster storm until it became clear she was headed straight for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. By the time I woke up from a fitful night’s sleep on the morning of 8/29/05, the community that I knew and loved had been gutted. I remember vividly being at my internship that afternoon, checking the initial damage reports and reading a single sentence that broke my heart, “First Baptist Church washed away.” I had always daydreamed of being married in the same church where my parents said their vows and where I was baptized. It was gone. Totally and completely leveled, as were the homes of quite a few childhood friends and/or their parents. In less than 24 hours, the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast was demolished, and neighboring New Orleans was underwater.

I was unable to take a day off my internship until October. I flew home to maximize my time there, and I remember watching through tears out the window as the plane landed – so many blue tarps, so many empty lots. The southernmost portions of the town were still barricaded, but my mom, as the church secretary, had a pass to visit the site of the church with me that weekend. Piles of rubble. The beautiful stained glass from the mosaic in the narthex lay mixed in with twisted metal, lots of paper debris, and an overturned piano. Only the cross-shaped steeple lay intact on its side. The church sat at the south end of main street and surrounded by residential areas, but you wouldn’t know it. It literally looked as if a bomb had exploded. Nothing was even recognizable.

My parents moved to Birmingham, very near to us, in 2011. In the times I visited my family between 2005-2011 there was a lot of change. The roofing men were in constant demand. Infrastructure was being rebuilt. FBC bought land further inland and built a large multipurpose sanctuary/gym/education building. The toppled steeple stands out front. Friends and acquaintances bought or built new houses. Progress came, but slowly. Still along the shore, things looked wild and depressing. It was better, for sure. No one needed disaster relief volunteers serving food or water or boxes of sheets and towels for their temporary “Katrina cottage” FEMA shelters. There wasn’t an “emergency” but the community was still in the early stages of healing: cleaning out, taking stock, and beginning to plan what they would do next.

My 20th high school reunion was this summer, and I debated long and hard about going. I had not been to the Coast since 2013. In the end, several people I wanted to see in person were attending, and it was a good chance to take the kids to the beach. So off we went.

We stayed in a little guest cottage off a main thoroughfare in Long Beach, which was so much nicer than a hotel. We had room to spread out with the kids, and it felt more like a visit home by staying in a familiar neighborhood. I enjoyed (much more than the kids did, I’m afraid) sharing stories and memories from my childhood. We drove by my old house and elementary school, both of which survived the storm with relatively little damage. I took them to my favorite po-boy restaurant, which was rebuilt almost exactly the same as it was. We dug in the sand and waded in the water that was part of my history in so many ways.

And yet, there were times when I was completely discombobulated. A beautiful town green sat in the middle of main street where an elementary school had always been. Stores were closed; restaurants had moved. Driving along the beach was still a navigational challenge because landmarks I had depended on for years and years were still gone. In fact, most of the lots closest to the beach are still vacant. They don’t have the wild, grown over look as much but they are still vacant. I would be where I knew I had been many, many times before but have no idea where I was.

It was so familiar and so different at exactly the same time.

On the drive home, it occurred to me – that is a very fitting analogy of my life at this point. In 10 days, we will mark 18 months without our precious Ethan. His death has changed me in a way that nothing else ever has, or maybe ever will. Last spring, our world exploded. Everything was affected – our marriage, children, extended family, friends, community, and even (especially) our faith in God. All at once, NOTHING looked like it did, or even remotely like it should. The wreckage and debris from those early weeks and months can be described as nothing but trauma. It was so overwhelming, I could not even begin to think about rebuilding my life or feeling any joy again. People wanted to share stories of friends who were further post-loss and living productive lives, and I couldn’t even comprehend how that could be. I heard people recommend journaling to begin to process my feelings – that was impossible, I couldn’t even begin to pick up a pen most days. All that I could process was basic survival mode.

Slowly, over the past year, we have begun the process of rebuilding our life and our family. We resumed being the primary caregivers for our surviving children. We returned to church, and eventually I made it to the grocery store and the beauty salon. My husband returned to work full time, and I fill in at the hospital when staffing needs arise. After a few months, I was able to read and pray again, and new infrastructure could be laid. We faced all the “firsts” – holidays, birthdays, family vacations – and found touchpoints of the familiar amongst the grief that continues to be so confusing at times.

The thing about my trip home this summer is that the evidence of Hurricane Katrina and the wreckage she inflicted was still very apparent to me. It is a city with a broken past that endured a difficult season of growth. It is not the Long Beach of my youth, but it is still home. After the devastation of 2005, some places were repaired or rebuilt. Other places I saw on our visit were brand new construction, even some really nice and beautiful places. Still other places were empty and awaiting redemption.

“Awaiting redemption” makes me think of the Friendship Oak. A seedling when Columbus sailed to America, this beautiful, enormous live oak tree used to be the crown jewel of a local college and a favorite place of mine. I wanted to take the kids to see it, but instead we pulled up to a decaying tree surrounded by “Keep Out” tape. There is no way to repair, replace, rebuild, or improve on the Friendship Oak until Jesus restores creation to its full glory, and I know there will be places like that in my life as well. Things that just will not be right until I see Ethan again. But in the beginning, that felt like all there was left to my life. Truthfully, that was how I wanted it. What kind of a mom “heals” from her son? Now, almost 18 months later, I can finally see that I am not healing from Ethan or the experience of being his mother but from the storm surge that made landfall on March 10, 2017 – the tragedy that swept my child away from me and destroyed almost everything I had ever known. Almost.

Some things survived the storm intact, but I couldn’t see them for the wreckage. I am starting to identify some places from my “life before loss” that can be repaired, other things that can eventually be rebuilt in a different location, and still other lots which will be vacant for a long, long time to come. I hope that one day, I can even build some beautiful new spaces in my life, like the town green where my classmates gathered with our families and watched our children play in the splash pad under live oak trees that weathered the storm 13 years ago. I don’t know that I am there yet, but the fact that it is even starting to seem possible is only by the grace of God, the love of my family, and the support of a few close friends. Please don’t stop praying for us, checking in on us, and braving the sorrow with us as you are able. We are still very much under construction.