All by Vanessa Shepherd
When is the last time that you played a game with a toddler? (Or attempted such a feet.)
My daughter was given a pair of Christmas-themed Go Fish cards and I thought it would be such a great idea to take the opportunity to teach her the game. She loves counting, she loves finding matches, and she loves spending time together. Win, win, win.
I am a chronic over-sharer. It gets real uncomfortable, real quick. But unfortunately, not for me, which means I miss it most of the time when people exit stage left.
In a conversation recently with a newer friend, I had been complaining that it seemed it was more difficult for me to make (and keep) friends than the average Joe. I thought she would refute the sentiment with a sarcastic piece of encouragement that would feel like a little word love tap, on the top of my head, to signal me that I was overthinking… but instead, she laughed and responded that she could understand why.
What do we do when we’ve followed the Lord’s prompting and the light on the path seems to dim? What do we make of it when we are so passionate about the birthing of a dream, but when we finally get to the part where we bring it into existence, we are spent from the months of laboring that we’ve already been through? Or the fear of rejection causes us to want to hold it in?
And just like that, we have found ourselves on another dark path. Because that is the nature of life isn’t it? The certainty of highs and lows, joys and sadness? There is no escaping it… so we must plod through.
I can remember as a young child telling my family that I didn’t want to have biological children of my own. I am not even sure how I came to the conclusion that I wanted to adopt children instead, but I remember thinking that I wanted to be a safe space for a child who didn’t have a home. It is almost ironic thinking of it now as I was just a child myself.
These days have consisted of a lot of learning, growing, arguing, apologizing, crying, screaming, playing, laughing, working, cleaning, Hulu… and Zoom. Literally, so much Zoom.
And while we have all jumped in with both feet, the truth is that we are getting weary. We are just simply over it. But really, we are nowhere near over it just yet (please God, let us at least be halfway)!
After many months of planning, the weekend had finally come - our fourth annual girl’s conference and our little team was more than ready. Ready for exactly what we had been obsessively planning that is. Not exactly ready for what we were about to experience.
“Anyone can write a book.”
“I don’t make very much from it.”
“It really isn’t that exciting.”
These are the phrases I have caught myself saying over and over again. Truth be told, I have been saying variations of these same things my whole life. Not for people to pity me, or to fish for a compliment. No, I think deep down I just didn’t want anyone to think that I thought too highly of myself. Because I don’t. I am not that great.
I read through the chapters three times this morning to confirm a thought that had been swirling around in my head the past few days.
Every so often I like to dissect things that have been resolute in my life, not to challenge them but to gain greater understanding around them and this was one of those times. The story of creation. God was trying to teach me something, show me something, that I have read many times over and had never sat with to process.
I spent my morning taking care of a mouse.
Not one of those house trained, loves people, pet ones. No, I am pretty sure this little thing was minding its own business in the great outdoors when it unknowingly ran into our cat Roo judging by the lack of full body movement.
This year I celebrated my birthday a little different than any other year. This year I gathered my family and friends to celebrate and finally publicly share a (mostly kept) secret project that I had been working on since January.
Rich and I were gifted two very different children. I used to hate this. It has made me cry and feel completely at a loss sometimes as we navigated the road to do what “was best” or “would work” for two boys who function in completely opposite ways but over the last few years I have grown to appreciate their uniqueness.
Actually, that is the wrong word. I don’t just appreciate it, I have come to celebrate it. I love that our boys are their own people. But it has taken a lot to get there.
Lately I have been feeling more and more like I am healing into a whole person again. Not the same girl who entered the darkness, but one who has seen the terrors that go bump in the night and has emerged with wider eyes and a greater understanding of human suffering. And God. I have learned a few things about Him and His goodness, too, as I have leaned into Him more and more.
My sea legs are almost gone and while I stumble through fewer and fewer moments of complete anguish, I have found one constant, nagging, companion. The urge to want to still include my brother in conversations about my present life.
Almost two full years after my first trip to Lebanon, the home land of my great grandparents, I was returning. This time sharing the beauty and wonder with my father and older sister whom I had encouraged to sign up many months before.
This trip was structured much like my first one, with a visit to the Syrian refugee camps and hosting of a women’s conference (both near and dear to my heart), but beyond those experiences this time around would share more similarities than I could have ever imagined.
Do you want to know something unfair? Something I have truly come to detest these days? How easy it is to hurt the ones you love when you are forced down the road of grief… unwillingly… by life… kicking and screaming (and probably with some gnashing of teeth).
My countenance was sullen that day. I had spent the weekend trekking through a familiar place that held many fantastical memories and overwhelming feelings of safety for being home for over a decade, all of which were dulled by the glaring absence of my brother who had been gone now for six months. There was no going back to normal or popping in for spontaneous visits anymore. Everything would now need to be planned to a “t” accounting for any emotional sustaining measures needed to “get through” being “there” again. Grief took this from me too, it just kept taking it seemed.
That Sunday morning was no different. I sat in the back of the church that I had grown up in, that I met Jesus in, that I went to bible college in, that I met my husband in, that I got married in, that we pastored in… and that we said our goodbye’s to my brother in. It was my first time back since that day and while I still had thousands of memories that I could pull on to put a smile on my face, the only one that I wanted to forget was the one that wouldn’t leave me.
Your life looks completely different now. Who knew that one person could change the entire world with their absence – but it has. For you. And I am so incredibly sorry for your pain.
After a few months (sometimes even a few weeks or days) the texts and phone calls stop. Friends and coworkers continue with conversations as “business as usual”, because they don’t know how to help or what to say. The gift of normalcy is offered so quickly but it offers no relief. Because nothing is normal anymore. They try, people genuinely care and want to “fix” it but there is no “fixing” this because they didn’t break you to begin with. Life did. Death did. And although everything changed in the blink of an eye, it will take months and years to navigate back to something resembling life before this dreadful news.
We sat down to eat and my brother’s brightly colored plaid socks peaked out from under his dress pants as if to say a cheery “hello”.
It was my father’s birthday and my siblings, mother, and I had surprised my dad by all meeting near where my brother worked so as to have one last family picnic before my parent’s big move to the Central Coast.
John had just started working for the Federal Defender’s Court in Sacramento and couldn’t stray too far from the office building as parking and time away for lunch was limited. When I was first planning the last minute get together, he told me to just get the girls together with my mom and dad without him because there were too many complicated factors, but I was adamant that he come.
