Live it Anyway

Martina McBride's song "Anyway" is a great picture of one of the difficult truths of our faith. I have heard it a lot on the radio and I am usually not a big country music fan...especially when they use bad english...but this song stirred up some things in me that I felt the need to put down on paper.

Just in case you haven't ever heard the song...here are the words:

Anyway

You can spend your whole life building something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anway

You can chase a dream that seems so out of reach
and you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anway

Chorus:

God is great, but sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway

This worlds gone crazy and its hard to believe that tomorrow
will be better than today
Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart, for all the right reasons
and in a moment they can choose to walk away
Love them anyway

Repeat Chorus

You can pour your soul out singing a song you believe in
that tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang
Sing it anyway, sing it anyway

I sing, I dream, I love, anway.


I have been especially drawn to the chorus of the song because of the simplistic way it defines our faith and the struggles that occur as we live our lives in this less than perfect world. It hits home with me because I feel like in many ways I spent the first 35 years of my life operating under the mistaken principle that life would always be good as long as I tried my best to follow God and obey his commands. My dad's favorite lecture to me what that you always "reap what you sow". And so, I believed it and I bought into it enough that I began to believe that as long as I was trying to follow God I could expect a good life. And, for the most part my simplistic and flawed theology worked. I could look at things in my life and see where I was reaping what I had sown. Sometimes I reaped good things and sometimes I reaped some bad things. It created a false sense of control for me because I thought that I was somehow controling the circumstances of my life by making sure I did more good than bad...or at least it made me afraid to do any of the really bad stuff...the stuff that should have really huge consequences...

As you might expect Brian's death caused me to question God and wonder how something so tragic could happen to my family. It wasn't an issue that I dealt with during the first few months of my grief. I think one of the benefits of the shock that we go through in those initial stages of crisis is that we aren't yet able to work through the faith issues until later when some time has passed and we have the emotional energy to face the difficult spiritual issues.

However, as I allowed my mind to face the apparently contradicting elements in my faith it led me to the conclusion that (based on my understanding of why good and bad things happened) surely there was something I had done or Brian had done to cause this to happen. I would replay in my mind conversations that we had and I tried to pick apart our relational struggles in order to find what it was that I did or he did to cause this to happen. My motivation was that I needed to know what it was that I did because I think at some level I believed I had to find a way to regain control of the circumstances of my life. In other words, I had to figure out what I did to cause it to happen so that I would never do it again.

It took several months of counseling for me to work through those issues. I considered every possible reason why it might have happened. And...there was plenty to consider and it wasn't any fun or very productive. It was emotionally exhausting. It was distracting. It literally consumed all the quiet moments in my mind. I went to bed thinking about it and I woke up thinking about it. My mind could hardly ever rest for the commotion going on inside my head.

Thankfully, I was finally able to get some resolution last March after I had a conversation with my dad that has become one of the most meaningful and healing conversations I have ever had with my dad. We were driving to the store to pick up something for my mom and I got the courage to say to him this: I said "Dad, do you remember what your favorite lecture was to me?" He laughed and rattled off one of his other favorite lectures and I said , "no that isn't the one I am talking about". I went on to say that the lecture I remembered being one of his all-time favorites was the "Shelly, you reap what you sow so make sure you are sowing seeds of love, kindness, obedience, etc...He would tell me that the law of the harvest is that we always reap what we sow and we always reap more than we sow.

And then I said to him "dad, I can't figure this one out. I can't figure out what I did or Brian did to cause this to happen....I don't get it......" On a side note...it isn't that I couldn't think of plenty of bad things I might could have done to cause it...it was that when I compared whatever struggles we had to other people in life who still had husbands it didn't seem to compute. It wasn't that Brian and I didn't struggle or get frustrated with each other or that I didn't nag him or that I wasn't sometimes unreasonable and unappreciative...it was that I couldn't see where the punishment fit the crime...it seemed to be an absurdly unfair consequence.

And so after I asked him that question he pulled his truck over to the side of the road and we talked for a long time. We both shared some pretty intense emotion and then he told me "Shelly, you and Brian didn't do anything to cause this to happen....this isn't punishment...I don't understand it either....I've even asked God what I did to cause my daughter and my grandchildren to have to go through this...." It really isn't important the details of the conversation that we had that day. What was crucial to me though was that my dad...the one who taught me that we can expect good things when we make good choices and bad things when we make bad choices...released me from this need to figure out what I did to cause Brian's death. He told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to let that go and trust that God would take care of me and the kids.

The truth was that I had wanted to ask him that question for several months but I was afraid to. One of the reasons that it was so hard to ask him that question was that I really fully expected him to say, "well Shelly, I think you and Brian probably did this...xyz...and that is why I think it happened". Sounds incredibly foolish now, but I really thought he would tell me the exact reason why it happened and I was afraid to hear what it was...because I knew I would have to live with the guilt of whatever it was that I had done for the rest of my life...

So, that one conversation with my dad allowed me to relax enough in my faith to allow some healing to begin. However, once I let go of trying to figure out why it had happened, it made the next dilemma more apparent. It occurred to me a few weeks after that conversation that...If I am not the reason it happened then why would God allow it to happen. Maybe I have been fooled by God's character. Maybe God isn't who I thought He was. Maybe God can't really be trusted with my life. Yet another dangerous road to go down. So, I struggled for several more months in counseling to work through who God is.

And, unfortunately...I still haven't completely figured that one out....and if I am honest I know that I will never completely understand God and his ways and his purposes.

But, if we look at this song....it actually has some pretty good theology....the chorus says "God is great but sometimes life ain't good. And when I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should. But I do it anyway. I do it anyway."

The line "God is great but sometimes life ain't good" is a hard concept for some of us to really accept and believe...we think that if God is great then life should be good...and when it isn't...maybe you are like me and you figure maybe God isn't so good if what he is allowing us to go through is so tough....so heartbreaking.

But...really...truly....the two concepts can and should both be true. We live in a world marred by sin....in a world where all life ends...we live knowing that all of us face the same destiny of an earthly death....one thing that I have learned that never really crossed my mind prior to Brian's death is that not only does all life eventually end...all marriages also end...guaranteed.....either in death or divorce...somewhere along the way I missed that....and I was surprised and caught off guard when my marriage ended so abruptly...

Faith requires us to accept this notion that the greatness of God and the badness of the world exist simultaneously. And, like the song says....even though sometimes when we pray it doesn't turn out the way we think it should...we do it anyway....we do it anyway...

You and I aren't alone in our struggle to reconcile the bad world we live in with the Great God we worship. There are plenty of examples of men and women in the Bible who questioned God and the fairness of the circumstances they were living in. Probably the most well-known Bible hero would be Job. Job didn't get it either. The thing that is interesting about Job is that even after Job ranted and raved at God, God still never gave Him the answer He was looking for. Instead, God turned the tables and gave Job an answer in the form of a long list of questions. God asked Job "Who are you? Are you God? Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?" In essence, instead of an answer God gave Job His presence by speaking to Him in a powerful way. And, lest we miss this point....the Bible speaks more highly of Job than just about any other person in the Bible...so surely if Job could have understood he would have...and if God would have given anyone a complete answer to his why questions it would have been Job....

The fact of the matter was and is that there aren't always answers for our why questions. Unfortunately, I think sometimes when there is no answer we try to create an answer...we connect things together that shouldn't be connected.....because in our minds we think we have to have an answer....Christians don't do each other any favors when we tell each other "someday you will understand why it happened....or, God must have known you could handle it.....or any of a hundred other cliches we sometimes use in order to pacify our need to have an answer.

The Bible is packed with verses and passages that make it clear that we should assume there will be trials...there will be death...there will be gut-wrenchingly difficult days....but the Bible also fully affirms the Greatness of God.

Some verses and passages to consider:

Nahum 1:7

God is good, a hiding place in tough times. He recognizes and welcomes anyone loking for help, no matter how desparate the trouble.

Psalm 138:7

When I walk into the thick of trouble keep me alive in the angry turmoil.

Psalm 23:4

Even when the way goes through death valley, I'm not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd's crook makes me feel secure. ...(vs 6) Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life.

Isaiah 43:2-4

Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called your name. You're mine. When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end because I am God, your personal God, the Holy of Israel, your Saviour. I paid a huge price for you. That's how much you mean to me. That's how much I love you.

There are no "ifs" in these passages....it's not "if you have trouble I will be with you"....it's not "if you make a mistake and find the consequences difficult to bear then I will be with you"....the greatness of God and the "badness" of life are assumed and affirmed...and God's presence is promised...and for me, that has been my saving grace. God's presence in my life during the past two years has been what has gotten me through....it was also what got Job through....and it is what will get you through....

But, it isn't just the theology that is appealing to me in this song....it is the challenge that even knowing that life isn't always going to be good that we stay focused and determined to live it anyway...to live and build whatever life God has given us...to dream whatever dream and love whoever we need to love...in spite of the fact there will be times of great struggle and disappointment and failure.....

As I have had a chance to heal some from the loss of Brian I find that life is still worth living....and that God is still worth worshipping and serving....and for that I am grateful.

His clothes....

This past week my mom was here and she asked me if it was ok if she took some of Brian's clothes to cut up and make a quilt for each one of the kids. We had actually talked about this right after Brian died and I told her then that I thought that would be a great idea but I wasn't ready to go through his clothes yet.

When Brian first died I really didn't want to get rid of any of his clothes...well, except his socks and underwear. As a matter of fact, while those two items were probably the most painful for me to see when I was in the initial state of shock, they were also the first things I was able to get rid of. I remember when I came home from the burial in Oklahoma I took a black trash bag and put all of them in it and put the bag out for trash the next day. (Seems kind of weird now that I think about it....but that is what I did). **Edited to add: Come to think of it...I used to work with someone who made her husband promise that if anything ever happened to her he would immediately dispose of her "personal" items in a black trash bag....maybe that is why I did that....but probably it is more likely that it was just too painful to have those personal reminders of him.

It was about nine months later that I began to sort through his clothes and began the process of removing some of his stuff from the closet. I didn't have a problem giving away clothes that had no sentimental value....but if the shirt or pants had a memory tied to it then I kept it. I ended up with a whole rack of his clothes, pants, jackets, etc. and I put them in the very top of our (now I say "My") closet.

The clothes have sat untouched for about 15 months. Until this week. When my mom mentioned going through them and beginning to cut them up it triggered some emotion that surprised me. What is it about his clothes that when my mom starts cutting them up it feels like I am packing him away or moving on or maybe facing the reality (again) that he really never is going to wear those clothes again. He isn't coming home.

Interestingly, a couple days later I had a dream that triggered more emotion. I dreamed that Brian really was alive. He was in a rehabilitation unit and in my dream I was only just now going to visit him (after almost 2 years of him being in the unit). He was in really bad shape. He had bandages around his head, his eyes were swollen and his face was bruised. I could give a very detailed description of what I saw in my dream (but that would trigger more emotion). When he saw me he started mouthing "momma" to me (still not sure why he would say that to me but that was the dream) and shaking his head and trying to get up. It was very evident to me in the dream that he was not the same...he was not the Brian that I knew..but he was recognizeable. One of his hands was gone and there were bandages all over his body. He had very little control of his body movements...I will stop here because the point is not how awful this dream was....the point is that I think I still have some guilt in the back of my mind that I didn't see him at the hospital or at the funeral home. I was too chicken. I didn't want to remember him that way. And yet, I have never regreted that decision and do think it was probably one of the better decisions I made while in shock.

So, my mom asking to cut up his clothes triggered emotion....that triggered some guilt about moving on...packing him away....that triggered some unacknowledged guilt that I have had about choosing not to see him....and I remember saying in the dream to the nurse "I am such a bad wife"...."I should have come sooner".....

So, just when I think that I have dealt with many of the issues of grief that I need to deal with along comes an unexpected aspect of my grief that surprises me....and all of that because my mom starting cutting up his clothes....