Saying Goodbye To September

 I can't believe September is done. It feels like a gap in my year - that a whole 30 days was swallowed into some black hole or vortex of suffering. I don't know how all those days went by when I wasn't paying attention. On October 3, I usually remember the line in the sand of my life - that fateful day when I witnessed violence and fear like nothing I'd known before or since. (Link to that saga here) It is one of those days - a before and after, where my life is forever marked as having crossed a bridge that can never be reversed. In other words, I can't unsee that. This September feels strangely similar. Timo's motorcycle accident has thrown me face to face with the unpredictableness of all of life. 

One moment I was heading to bed, the next, I'm riding an ambulance...it's still so surreal that I actually lived through this, and even more, that Timo did! And then two all-nighters, back to back. And to sit dazed in a hospital room, stunned, numb, and silent. To hear the screams and cries of infants, toddlers, and young children in the adjacent rooms - I sat and knew this was a place of suffering. And yet so much hope, so much care - all these surrounded me. "I don't want to be here!" I complain in my soul. And I think about the child next door and how she probably doesn't want to be here either. 

We ride the elevator up and see the weary glances on the faces of other parents. Parents who've been coming and going for months - a teenager with a concussion from months ago, a kid on their umpteenth round of chemo, a child with significant developmental support needs - on and on. My few days in a children's hospital blew my mind and heart open to a world of suffering I fail to see, acknowledge or pay much attention to. I was embarrassed that our experience was so temporary.

I sit waiting in the Physical Therapy waiting room. I try to do a Bible Study to pass the time, but I keep getting distracted by the little girl next to me. There is an oxygen tank in her stroller, and her legs are in braces. The weary Mom sits next to her, and I try to imagine her life. She has had to care for this child every day for her 3 or 4 years of life. My heartache and exhaustion are nothing compared to hers. I realize this sudden jolt of my own life, that demands work, service, patience, empathy, kindness, compassion, and more strength of physical and emotional reserves than I've clearly got - this is my very brief introduction to what many face every day without signs of reprieve. I have been ignorant and spoiled. I feel like an impetuous child who has lifted my complaints heavenward, and been cushioned, and comforted in my hour of need, only to be further instructed in the school of suffering when I sit in places of pain and healing. 

September feels like the fingernails screeching across the chalkboard of my soul, and I have cringed and bristled at the lesson in pain. I start to consider how very fragile life is - how it is but a breath and the span of it is but suffering, loss, pain, and grief. And then I think, 'Wow, Sarah, these are dark and discouraging thoughts.' So much for putting a positive spin on it. There is no way to be positive when you hear children crying who should be delighting in a picnic in the park, but instead are imprisoned in a body that is failing them. I feel like a spoiled child who has tasted so little of pain. And I hold my fragile self up to God and say, 'Spoiled or not, I need You to hold my breaking heart. I need You to supply strength when I have none. I need Your mercy, Your grace, each moment, and I know I've always needed it but I see it now more than ever.'

I told someone recently I don't believe we really need to rely on God more. I know that sounds like I'm going against common convention, but hear me out. I simply believe we need to understand how dependent on God we are at all times already. I wouldn't take my next breath without His loving-kindness. I AM reliant on God, whether I realize it or not. The growth that needs to happen is this: I need to see and understand reality as it is. To know that I am cocooned in the love and mercy of God in such a way that even in my unknowing-state, I am still upheld by His grace. 

September has been a time of reckoning, an uncomfortable time, a time of trauma, tears, shock, anger, struggle, and pain. When the 1st of October came, I was kind of relieved. It felt like a never-ending time warp. And still, my days are full of things I never expected - entire days spent going to the city for appointments to follow up on broken limbs and such. I haven't been downtown in years, and now I go every few weeks. Driving along the lakefront in the best weather of the year is a balm for my weary soul. I see the perfect horizon, the cloudless sky, the crisp clear water and marvel at this oasis of simplicity amidst a bustling city of complexity. The contrast is not lost on me. My life is complex, but the beauty of what God has made stills my complicated soul. In those moments I am thankful I have to go to the city. It is an opportunity to worship.

I look out the windows of the high building and realize there are thousands of people out there just doing their thing - going to work, getting by, trying and failing, trying and succeeding. I see kindness everywhere. Some seem to love their work, others not so much. Each one of these lives has its taste of suffering. And I realize how much I like to bury my head in the sand and see only my own pain. God has had mercy on me. I pray for God's mercy for each of them. 

Today I went to traffic court - another chunk of my life devoted to serve my child in his need. I didn't want to be there. I wished I could get out of it. But as I sat there, I listened to case after case. Each one standing before a judge - each bearing a weight of guilt, shame, regret. I noticed shoulders hunched, fidgeting, nervousness. I knew I could be one of these. It is painful to face and own my own failings. I feel for each person in the room. I see my own child, waiting his turn. I see his injured, broken, body, and again thank the Lord for sparing his life. A thought floats into my head, "You didn't want to be here. Well, you wouldn't be if he didn't survive that accident." Suddenly my annoyance melts into gratitude. "Thank you, Lord, for sparing his life."

I wrestle with comparing pain. It's of course a normal trauma response. Someone always has a harder story, and worse struggle. Over time I've learned that each one must carry their load of pain, and to them, it is hard. Some actually get seasons of little or no suffering, and they may be able to support and carry others' burdens at those times. But many are living lives of perpetual grief and loss. And sometimes we glorify soul-growth to such a degree that we forget that for many, it is not an option, or a luxury, but a way of life. Our souls are trained through suffering - there is a wisdom that only comes through pain. Ascetics were onto something when they strove to deny their flesh what it needs to survive, in order to taste and learn the lessons of suffering. I say they were onto something - but the disclaimer is - they weren't onto it entirely. Their mistake, I believe, was in believing they could create their own classroom of suffering. (But I'm sure God was kindly aware and blessed them anyway). 

So, I say goodbye to September. I'm glad to see it go, and it will forever feel like a black hole swallowed our time while we were busy scrambling to figure out how to run a teenager's life who is severely limited. Notice I said 'our time'. Now, if that isn't revealing, I don't know what is. What a faulty belief!! To think that time belongs to us!! If you have the luxury of planning and owning your time, be grateful. For so many, like the mom with the kid with the breathing machine in the stroller, and the cancer child mom, and the sports injury long-term concussion parent - I don't think they think of time as their own anymore. 

I'm grateful the Lord is patient with me while I learn these things. I'm thankful He's opening my heart and eyes to see what is plainly before me. I wait and continue to trust Him for each step of my way, even when I'm tired of it. But I still pray I never have another September like this past one.