I was afraid.
I was alone.
My body was getting ready for delivery.
A son.
I had gotten pregnant the previous year, by a guy I met while I was working at the Chief Auto Parts in Downey. I lived in my car then. My nephew being killed, the ritual nature of the killing, the newspaper stuff and the family stuff had converged and I was snot able to stay in my home town anymore. I met a guy. He was nice. W had sex. And I got pregnant. My need to deny the pregnancy had propelled me into my fifth month without acknowledging it.
Now I had acknowledged it. I had gotten married because of it and I was alone because my husband had left the week before on a six month deployment. Yes, he knew the baby was not biologically his. But he loved me.
I was at my sister’s and she had promised to be my labor coach. I went and told her I needed her help, the pain had begun. She told me she would be there in a bit. This was the last day she was protected by her current birth control and she wanted to make the most of it with her current boyfriend.
I had taken some cod liver oil earlier in the day because my new husband expected me to receive his furniture shipment in two days so I needed to have birthed the baby and be home by then, which was his original due date.
And the pain had begun. I was alone.
I wonder sometimes what it is like to go through pain with others. That has not been my journey.
As I travel back to recollect this time, it wasn’t until my water broke that my sister came out of her room to take me to the hospital. Then she was pretty disgusted with me when we got there and I did not progress quickly. They sent me home and she threatened to not bring me back.
Hours later. Contractions so strong I was almost entirely internalized. My sister and her boyfriend drove me in when I started screaming I think. I remember at one point the internal monitor said his heart had stopped and I saw two nurses look at each other and shake their heads. Pushing was awful. Our son had ingested his bowel movement and had to be suctioned for a while after birth. For many hours they did not bring him to me after birth. I think my behavior during birthing had given them alarm for his safety.
I remember one of the nurses saying she would not know me now, how calm I was.
And there was our son.
Beautiful. Perfect. Gentle. Life.
Something happened inside me. God gave me the grace to care.
I remember 26 as the year I had our son. And my life changed as God breathed on my heart through it.

It was too hard.
The memories, the pain, it was too hard.
I remember.
What a joke it seemed, to be recovering memories for this kind of pain.
Yeah I understood that it was for the best. I understood that I had to feel what was impossible to feel the first time. I understood when people told me it would get better although I really did not believe them.
I had just gone through an Easter memory, and it was too hard. That was all I could think.
Something had to change.
I went to see Mary. I tried to explain.
She asked if I had a plan.
Pills probably. But I would not be one who got caught. I was not doing it so someone would see me. I would do it to exercise choice. My. final. choice. The ultimate.
She reminded me of my husband. She brought to mind my kids. She talked of the positives. But when we were done, my mind was not changed.
I went home. The next day was good Friday. Great, a weekend of Easter. I sat on my couch after the kids were at school. Looking at nothing. Unable to move. Pain permeated every inch of me. Overwhelming pain. God!
I was trying to regain some sort of cohesion. When he came. Into my living room. Invisible but visible. I saw his outline and sensed his solidity. Jesus. He was there. I did not think it would matter. I hung my head.
He stood before me, then sat. How, where there was no chair, but he did. And he spoke, gently.
Your husband is not enough.
He knew. I loved my husband but the pains demand was greater.
I shook my head. No.
He spoke again.
Your kids are not enough.
I began to cry.
They should be, but in the honest examination my love for them was not overriding my need to escape this pain.
I was ashamed.
As I said again, no.
He paused. He was not surprised. He did not condemn. He was not shocked or overwhelmed. He didn’t need to fix me or persuade me or change me.
After awhile as I continued crying he spoke again.
I was wondering, he began….he paused. I was wondering if….there was an uncertainty almost in him, as if he was not certain what I would say. I focused on him. I was wondering if….for a little while….if living for me would be enough of a reason for you….to choose life.
It was a pivotal moment for me.
I realized he would not force me.
He was willing to offer himself even though it would hurt if I rejected him.
He made himself vulnerable to me. He risked. For me.
Knowing. Knowing it all. He waited.
The place inside me that had been touched by him before came alive.
Hope that had no faith arose.
I said, I guessed, I could try.
The moment I did, strength came.
A drop of his strength, into me, making me able where I was unable.
His pleasure was my strength.
His joy made my pain lessen.
And I could move again.
It was not gone instantly. There was not a miraculous stopping of the pain. But I became able to breathe again and think of other things beside it.
This Easter I am reminded. Of that Easter. And what He has done.
All praise to God, my Father, who has freely given me all things through his Son.
I don’t live in that pain anymore. But His joy is still my strength.

I didn’t care.
If I was caught it would be worse but if I stayed it would get worse too.
It didn’t matter.
I didn’t care.
I was disconnected. Always cold inside, and disconnected.
It was better to not feel. Feeling meant being surprised. Surprise was always scary. Better to stay alert and not be vulnerable by reacting.
That was how I lived.
I could tolerate a lot of pain that way.
I could commit unthinkable acts.
I did not have to have time to process. I just stuffed it elsewhere and another part of me rotated out to do life.
There was a constant low level anger. It only surfaced if something unexpected got in front of me and I felt blocked.
It didn’t seem that bad.
Nothing good lasts forever.
I did not know real joy but I did not get bogged down in negative emotion either.
What did I know?
Was there any other way?
So when I was dropped off at the shopping center with a little money to do some Christmas shopping and I was told to meet back in a few hours, an idea came and I acted on it.
Nothing ventured, nothing lost. It did not matter, what did I have to lose?
I found my way to the freeway.
I used my thumb to catch a ride.
And I left.
North, I thought.
Towards the ocean seemed right.
And I traveled.
Men picked me up, mostly.
I remember one ride, I got in the back with a couple of other teenage boys. We hopped on the freeway. We got behind another car in the fast lane. That car threw something out their window. A bottle. It hit our car. They car I was in exuded testosterone and we swerved close to the car in front of us, threatening with our recklessness. Surprise. The car swung over three lanes to take the next off ramp. We followed. Shit. There was going to be a fight. The guys I was with were primed for it. Until. The guy in the car ahead of us got out, with an axe in his hand. Uh oh. My ride went frantic in an instant, shouting and rolling up windows. The guy continued his approach. He got to our car. Raised the axe. Brought it down, hard on the roof. He calmly walked back to his car and departed. While the guys in my car began to assess what had happened and got out to look at the car, I quietly decided I might be better off finding another ride. There was no disagreement from their deflated egos. Onward. North. I traveled. There were many adventures. My life has been full. The money ran out fast, but there was me. I kept going. I traveled up to Washington…and back again. It took about 6 weeks. When I returned I asked my mom to emancipate me. I had proved I could live on my own. It was decided instead to send me to the midwest to live with my sister.
So I remained dependent, independent and traveled.
But I still didn’t care.
Or so I kept telling me.

I am in the Gospel of Luke this week. I was reading today about the parable of the Minas.
Do you know the story?
A nobleman went into a far country to receive a kingdom for himself and return.
Before he leaves he calls ten servants and tells them to do business till he returns, and he gives them each a mina.
We read that his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him saying he would not reign over them.
So the first servant turns the one into ten, the second servant turns the one into five. The third one hides his mina. In a handkerchief.
The nobleman returns, and he rewards those who made more out of what he gave them.
I have always heard this passage taught this way…Multiply what God has given you and he will reward you.
It is true, but today I am seeing a different picture.
When the man who hid his mina returns it to the nobleman, he says, I feared you, you are austere, you collect what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow. The nobleman calls him wicked, not because he hid the mina but because he did it with what he believed about the nobleman. The nobleman says the servant’s own words judge him, because if he believed that, then he should have put it into the bank and earned interest.
It is not just our activities that God judges.
He looks at what our heart believes to be true about him, then sees if our actions line up with that, and then he rewards or disciplines.
I wish I had parented my children with this insight.
How we act on what we believe…is us judging ourselves. It is our choice to align with what we believe or to shrink from it, or to deny it.
What a good note to begin the day!
Selah.

I feel the anticipation.
I laid it down. The whole birthright thing.
When I read it has its own timeline, and when I realized mine had been replaced.
There was nothing I could do.
And now he is sending me to the land of my birth.
I so was not expecting it.
I so know it is him.
I do not know what it will look like.
I know not the product, nor what it will look like finished, nor the process.
But I FEEL God.
And I know he will lead.
I am going to serve first.
A group with my understanding of the human spirit.
The Lord said to start them with a snapshot.
A group activity.
Groups of four.
Write snapshots about each other.
Teach them to anchor there.
Lead them in the way.
His voice is so clear.
His heart, his heart, his love.
Oh my.
Release to them what I have put inside you.
And I am repaying, restoring what the locusts have stolen.
You are my beauty.
My bride.
I could not leave you here.
Your glance has drawn me.
My sister my bride.
As you are led, I will lead.
Me and you.
Becoming one.
I am so undone.
He makes everything beautiful in its time.
Yesterday I was in the garden, asking where is the one my heart loves. I could not find him, though I looked for him.
And here, he has found me.
he created the tree to shadow over me.
His whispers are awakening my heart to song.
Crying in the airport.
How great is our God!

I lived with my boyfriend. Jim W.
We had a studio apartment, a few blocks from my high school.
That worked well for me.
I was a senior in high school.
My boyfriend was an aide at the high school auto shop.
I had met him the year before, when I was given a non running vehicle and told I could keep it if I fixed it. Auto shop had been the solution- I had rebuilt the motor and added some fancies to it. A 1970 Toyota Corolla. I enjoyed that car. Except when I had to push it. Aluminum heads and a steel block meant a recurring problem of blown head gaskets for me, and that car was crazy heavy to push.
It seems like yesterday.
My boyfriend also worked for his dad at a produce company and was a delivery driver in the early mornings. He would go downtown around 3, load up and make rounds, delivering fresh produce to certain restaurants and stores.
The early mornings were hard.
We started doing speed to keep from being tired.
And then we would get super cranky with each other.
We had a dog, a cream colored short hair, medium size dog we called puppy. I can remember taking him on walks behind the junior high where my step dad taught, up the mountain where I had gotten high in middle school and run away to, in elementary school. Those were favorite times, being out of doors with nature and my dog.
I used the pill as birth control but was not always regular in remembering it.
Sometimes Jim would use condoms.
One time, one broke.
I didn’t really think I could get pregnant.
I had already had sex so many times by 18, with so many people. I was told I had an inverted uterus and it would be nigh near impossible to conceive.
That turned out to be inaccurate.
I had a baby forming in my body when I graduated high school.
I was devastated.
My boyfriend was pissed off about it.
It seemed like abortion was the only option.
The day after my 18th birthday he took me to the clinic.
They put me out and when I woke up, they made sure I knew my name and then sent me home.
She would be 33 this year.
Elizabeth.
My little girl.
Jim and I didn’t last very long after that.
Our relationship was based on the physical, and emotional evens caused distance.
So 18 sticks out as a year I found solace in the land. And the year I lost my second baby.
When I consider how much God has done, I am still amazed.
May it ever be so.

She said I could share.
We have been working together for awhile.
Typically we find the Lord as she focuses on the garden of her heart.
Sometimes he holds her there while she weeps.
Sometimes he breathes on her to refresh her.
Sometimes he comes and releases a supernatural peace.
It is always beautiful.
When we sat together last week, it was different.
He didn’t wait for her to settle into focusing on her garden.
Almost as soon as she sat down, a garden appeared.
It was not hers, though.
It was his.
The garden where he spent time, right before his death.
The place where he asked his dad, if he would take the cup from him.
She knew it was his garden.
He invited her in.
She went, cautiously.
It was new. She was uncertain.
And then he asked.
He asked her if she would be willing.
To share some of his pain.
He asked if she would be willing to share the pain of his heart in the garden.
My heart ached for her.
She knows so much pain already.
A thought came to me.
Lord if you are asking her to share your pain, will you show her the joy set before her, so she can endure?
I have seen him do this from time to time.
Sometimes he will show a person the Bride.
She is why I went, she is why I keep going. She was the hope in me, and how I endured.
Sometimes he will show a person their own face.
It was you that I saw. I looked and your face was there. And my love for you sustained me as I walked through the pain.
For her, this time, he said something I have not heard before.
It was thoughts of my dad, he told her.
I knew I would soon be with him again.
That thought strengthened me.
I know for him, it was all of that and more. Yet he always seems to know what joy each person needs set before them to endure.
He always makes it so incredibly personal.
The thought, of Jesus looking forward to seeing his dad, brought strength to her. It enabled her to say yes. yes to sharing his heart.
Not because she likes pain. But because she loves him more than she fears her pain.
It is watching the overcoming spirit have its way again.
It is the victory that causes death to lose its sting.
It is the eternality having life in the temporal, and weighing more.
Some days I think I have the best job in the world, to see this stuff.
Surely he makes everything beautiful in its time.