During one of the many very special conversations that I was able to have over the course of the evening, something struck me and has prompted me to write this (very, very long - sorry!) post. I was speaking to a dear friend about a mutual friend who has recently experienced a great tragedy. As we spoke, something she said made me realize that I have not been truly faithful or honest in the picture I have been painting of my life. Obviously my close friends are aware of our reality, but I have been told that there are many people following along with our story who may not even know us, or not know us very well, and I think that they are probably not getting a true picture of what this journey is like, at least right now.
For the sake of Sergey's privacy, I will not go into the details of his struggles or even our interactions with him since he went back after Christmas. I will just reiterate that he is struggling with what is an impossible decision, as a 15 year old boy, to leave behind all he has ever known, to come to a completely new world, totally unaware of what his future will look like. We would ask for you to continue to pray for him and would also like to thank you for your faithfulness in doing so!! Our "Pray for Sergey" SignUp Genius continues to have new names added, and we are so grateful.
What I'd like to share now is a little bit more of my story, of how this last month has looked and felt for me. My conviction as I chatted with my friend last night was that I have presented a fairly rosy public picture of how I/we have been doing. If you have only been following us here or on Facebook, then you have seen lots of great pictures, countless pairs of shoes collected, thousands of dollars raised on Amazon, hundreds of folks coming together to have fun and support our cause. All of that has been true and it has been miraculous. God has used so many things we would have never even dreamed of to raise what once looked like an unattainable amount of money. He has drawn in so many folks to support us, to pray for Sergey, and to love our family. I could never have believed all of this could happen to us, and that's why I'm always so excited to announce these things to everyone in the world on Facebook :-).
However, there has been another side of this ride that only those closest to us have really seen. I think I wanted to not make people uncomfortable, to not scare them away from hosting or adopting, to not be Debbie Downer and have folks avoid me when I might run into them in public. And also, to be honest, it just hurt too much to even sit down and write it all out. What I realized last night was that I am harming people by only telling them one side of the story. We all have pain, we all have aches, disappointments, unmet longings, deep scars. On the one hand, we do love to rejoice with each other - to click "like" on an airport picture of a family reunited. We love when things turn out well, we love a happy ending. But on the other hand, we are all very aware of the stories in our own lives and those around us that don't end up tied with a pretty bow. We know that things don't always turn out well, more often than any of us really cares to admit. It's easier, most of the time, to just survive, to push down that reality and just live on the level where things are happy, a place my dear friend Hunter Thompson has aptly named "Shallowland." There are always lots of fun things to do in Shallowland, and if we try hard enough, we can succeed at living a good portion of our lives there.
Before this past month, I lived a lot more of my life in Shallowland than I care to admit. I shied away from anything too deep or painful, because it just hurt too much. I didn't know what to do with people who were in pain - what do I say to them? what can I do for them? how can i do something to make their pain go away?
What I have come to begin to learn over these past few weeks is that there is beauty, peace, and even joy in the deeper worlds, the places where pain takes us. Part of the beauty of these places exists in the fact that we don't have to be alone in our pain. There are other people out there struggling, all around us. If we are willing to admit that we aren't "just fine," we can come along side of each other and love each other in a way that will never, ever exist in Shallowland. I am wildly blessed to have been given the gift of many dear, kind, generous friends who have loved me and my family so well over this past month. They have talked to me on the phone as I sobbed and sobbed and could not even speak. They have sent gifts, emails, texts, cards. They have called, visited, hugged and prayed. They have paid for my dinner from across the restaurant as an unexpected and beautiful gesture. They have followed me into the girls bathroom when I have run out of church unable to control my emotions. They have not shied away from us in our pain, and have continued to show up. Being able to cry, to mourn, to feel exactly what I am feeling, has been a gift that my friends have given me. (And I want to make sure that you realize that my husband is included in this group of "friends," since he is my best friend :-), although he could not follow me into the bathroom, not only because he is a boy but because he is usually up front at the time ;-). He, more than anyone, has had to live alongside what this pain has done to me, and he has done it with kindness, patience, and tender love. I am grateful for the way he has never demanded me to be someone that I am not - especially as he is not super "comfortable" with emotion ;-). I love you, honey :-) - I had thought one day that I would "grow up" and not have such strong emotions, but it looks like maybe you are stuck with me like this :-).
So the reason I want to be more honest here is to tell you, whoever you are out there, that I am so sorry for whatever pain you are feeling now, or have felt, or will feel. I may not know your exact pain or have been in your exact position, and I know that far too many of you have experienced enormous loss that I have not even touched yet in my life. However, if you are someone that I am blessed enough to call friend, know that I am here, and would love to sit with you, cry with you, pray with you, or share an adult beverage (or two ;-) ) with you. If I don't know you, or don't know you well enough for you to feel comfortable doing these things with me, please find a friend who will. Find someone who will listen to you, not judge you, allow you to feel what you are feeling and not rush you into feeling better. This has been one of the sweetest gifts my friends have given me - allowing me to be sad. I have recently read (twice in the past three weeks) a phenomenal book on suffering, written by Tullian Tchividjian, called "Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free," in which he says this: "When the bottom falls out of our lives, we don't necessarily find it comforting when people try to cheer us up. No matter how well intended, such overtures create pressure that adds to our distress. Not only are we suffering, but now we feel bad about how we make those around us feel, or at least, about the disconnect between where they would like us to be and where we actually are." If there is someone in your life who is struggling (and I am sure there is), allow them to be sad, and don't hurry them to a happier place. And if you are the one who is struggling, try to surround yourself with friends who give you that freedom (often I think these friends are the fellow strugglers - I've noticed that folks who "have it all together" have much less patience for those of us falling apart.)
We don't know yet where the end of this road will be. We are praying like crazy (as are many, many of you :-), that God will work a miracle - that Sergey will have the courage to leave everything he's ever known to come be a part of our family (and this community). However, in the meantime, I will continue to have days where my emotions are so overwhelming that I can't leave my house. I'll continue to have Sundays where it is all I can do to remain standing during the worship time, when I feel like the pain will overcome me and I'll collapse to the ground. I'll continue to have times where I feel like I literally cannot breathe and I pray I'll wake up and find out it's all a bad dream. And I know that, until he is here for good, I will feel like a part of my heart is missing, a big chunk of my insides is just not there. And if he ends up deciding that he can't come, that it's just too hard, I know that I will face even darker days, days that right now I can't even imagine surviving.
But here is what I also know, as Tchividjian says: "We may not ever fully understand why God allows the suffering that devastates our lives. We may not ever find the right answers to how we'll dig ourselves out. There may not be any silver lining, especially not in the ways we would like. But we don't need answers as much as we need God's presence in and through the suffering itself. For the life of the believer, one thing is beautifully and abundantly true: God's chief concern in your suffering is to be with you and be Himself for you ... God wants to free us from ourselves, and there's nothing like suffering to show us that we need something bigger than our abilities and our strength and our explanations. There's nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need God. In other words, suffering reveals to us the things that ultimately matter, which also happen to be the warp and woof of Christianity: who we are and who God is ... If the foundation of our identity is anything less than God, if the thing that makes us who we are is a position in life, a certain relationship, a prestigious name, money, you name it - then we will experience pain whenever and wherever that foundation is assaulted, as it inevitably will be. Our suffering will serve as an indicator of how little we actually believe this good news (of Jesus), or at least an indicator of what we are building our life on and where we are looking for meaning. And when we lose something we believed was crucial to our existence and value, maybe even something that we felt we deserved, when one of the load-bearing beams in the house that glory built collapses, we will become embittered or despondent. The truth is, suffering does not rob us of joy; idolatry does. But if our identity is anchored in Christ, so that we are able to say, "Everything I need I already possess in him," then suffering will drive us deeper into our source of joy ... Indeed, the gospel alone provides us with the foundation to maintain radical joy in remarkable loss."
It is this joy and beauty that I have begun to catch a glimpse of during these past few weeks, and it has been an unexpected gift. And that is truth that I am happy to now be able to share :-). Jesus is who He says He is, and He does not leave us alone. One last quote from Tchividjian: "There is no guarantee that we will experience relief from pain. I wish I could say there was. This life may feel like one long, painful death. All you can do is hang on, and sometimes you can't even do that. Fortunately, the good news of the gospel is not an admonition to hang on to God with all your strength and willpower and you'll be okay. The good news of the gospel is not some gnostic encouragement to view your suffering in the right way, or understand the theology of the cross more deeply. No, the good news of the gospel is that God is hanging on to you. He's not waiting for you to save yourself or mature into someone who no longer needs Him. He will not let you go, come what may. Jesus will never, ever leave you or forsake you. Nothing you can do or not do can separate you from the love of Christ."
And I pray that we will all be able to be honest and share in each other's hardships, share how God is changing us, meeting us, loving us, holding on to us. I'd love to hear your story, if you're willing to share it with me. Your story is a gift - please give it to someone soon. I have faith that you (and your friend!) will be glad you did.
Love you.
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