a confession.

::I’m not always okay. Days hang without home in the quiet.  Not all days, some.  I drift out with the tide receding, fleeing from shore, the sand on fire.  And all I want to do is float.  Maybe sink a little, too.

It gets lonely not forgetting.

The woman who was my wife, whom I loved fully and forever, died.

I remember what’s been done, how life would not stop, how her body would not heal, how I trusted God only with words while my heart seethed betrayal.  Yes, I remember.

I remember that I’m okay with what’s been done and in days laid in waste and wait, those words trusting bloomed alive.  I know that it is not my doing, but His strength continually coming into its own.

::I do not need to always be okay.

My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness. (2 Cor 12:10, The Message)

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3, NIV)

manuscript done. almost.

"My eyes open slowly, knowingly to a new world." And with that, my fingers stopped moving and my manuscript complete. ...for now, at least.  Those are the parting words.  The very last words that wrap up my first book.  For the past year, hours have piled high, words have bled out and memories and reflections recorded.  Forming and shaping the base of what will soon be my first book completed.

I emailed my manuscript off for editing last week.  And it was with plenty of anxiety. It’s one thing to write words.  But to have someone comb through those words holding close to your heart, life lived fibers connecting your heart to days behind and hope ahead, can be a whole ‘nother level of vulnerability.

I winced a bit as I hit the send button releasing my manuscript into the hands of my editor purposed on cutting, slicing, adding, suggesting and critiquing ...all for good, of course.  But still.

I winced even more when her initial response filled my inbox.

When I first started writing this book, my approach was simple: a revisiting of life and recounting of God’s grace in light of grief hanging heavy.

My fingers found reprieve in a blank screen and comfort in the retelling, the sharing and the journey.  God found as my words came to life.  Writing grew into quite a cathartic exercise.  The discipline required to stay on schedule (somewhat), a healthy tether to life as it happened and hope ahead.

I guess only part of me expected an actual book to result.  Being an author always seemed like an audacious reach for me.  That’s precisely how big dreams should exist, as life in the far distance imagined.  The reach required to close that intimidating, romantically imagined distance demanded sweat and furrowed brow ...and steps defying resistance.

Books aren’t written by ideas or even pretty words.  Books are written by authors who don’t quit.

The same holds true for anything in life hoped for.  Hope is not enough.  You have to be a dream taker owning what is hoped for in your dripping effort.  Plenty of people hope for things better and years grow, aging hopes.  Eventually hopes and dreams get swallowed in the distance and diminishing effort given.  Steps cease and the distance between where you stand and where you hoped to be never met.

Quit and you’ll never arrive.  Discount your dream as unimportant, unworthy and unreachable and you will always be where you are, never a step closer.

I’m still staring at hope in the future.  It’s still out there in front of me, but the distance is closing quickly as step by step I draw nearer.

My manuscript still needs to be completed after editing.  A publisher will need to accept my book.  People will need to read it.  Another book will be written.  And another.  That is the fullness of my dream.  Not one book, but as many as I will write.

I set out to be a writer.  That is the dream glowing and the hope hanging.

I’ll keep you posted on how my manuscript evolves into a book over the next couple months and share excerpts and behind the scenes type of thought and information.

And I hope that the slightest bit of inspiration from my journey eases into your effort as you hope, dream and close the distance.

seek thou joy.

“Go forth, my heart, and seek thou joy.”Paul Gerhardt

Joy is found by those who search and see.

Shuffling in a life less than, marred by mistakes, taken by circumstance, wilted in days echoing hollowly.  It is easy for feet to falter and each day constrict to the size of a moment.  There, stuck and wandering, life memorialized.  Some stay in that spot for years wondering how life seemingly went so wrong.  And some never take another single step forward, only steps circling, while observing others they know and don’t move with the appearance of effortless grace.

Not only are steps still, but the heart is captive to the moment, too.  Joy alludes. Life free from pain, agony, tragedy and all that gives cause for worry and fear waves in the heat of day as a mirage in the drier times of life experienced by all.  ...by all, that is no overshoot.  Everyone goes through tough times that try our resolve and dry our souls a bit squeezing out most reason for joy.

Life doesn’t wait for anyone.  It isn’t concerned with fairness, doesn’t respect where you’ve been or who you are.  Life unfolds as it will into each day.  We must decide how we will live it.

Much of relearning life for me has involved opening to joy again.  Not mere pockets of happiness oscillating in changing days and temperature, but happiness lasting and independent: joy.

In days darkened by tragedy and grief extending into the unseeable future, happiness filled my life in predictable reprieve.  A good conversation, an entertaining movie, immersing myself in hobbies and activity, et cetera, all gave way of escape and lightened life.  My eyes lifted out of the drudgery of life as it existed then and looked for a time when all would be lighter and happy lasting.  Joy continually escaped me.  The feeling just wouldn’t stick.

Happiness is a fleeting drug lifting for a moment vanishing the next without trace.

What we miss as hands frantically reach for happiness running is everything now.  And that’s really all there is, now.  Because happiness doesn’t last, we chase hard in pursuit and rush through now to the next lighter moment.  Happiness delivered a smile, but never penetrated my to heart causing an engulfing, sad detachment and confusion between my heart and my head.

Joy sets a course aright, fills in cavernous cracks and strengthens bending knees.  No matter the day or the straining conditions, joy gives life to a weaning heart.

I found joy scattered along the broken path in the easiest places positioned in plain view everywhere I was not looking.  Happiness busied me in its coming and going and blurred my sight.  My eyes always looking to spy the next opportunity for happiness while missing joy all around.

Joy exists much closer than you often think.

In a sunrise.  A smile defiantly worn on my daughters’ faces in grieving times.  A call from a friend.  Laughter.  Health.  Home.  Making dinner again as a family.  Stories and hugs at bedtime.  Weary but honest smiles early in the morning marking another day lived together.

And the list grew larger in endless mundane, but infinitely saving detail.

Thankfulness led me to joy.  And there’s an abundance of joy to be had right there in our lives despite the height or weight of circumstance.  As I slow to assess all of life actual existing immediately around me, I have much to be forever thankful for.

The secret to joy lies nestled in the day-to-day of life.  We miss its simplicity in our hurried attempt at happy.  I began to make lists and jot down.  The idea for thankfulness lists came from a book I read entitled, “One Thousand Gifts,” by Ann Voskamp.  Cataloging all reasons to be thankful gave endless cause for joy.  I go back to my lists in thinning moments and difficult days and no matter the conditions, joy rises.

And so for me, releasing my heart to seek after not mere happiness, but joy again, has been in allowing my heart to attach to everything I have reason to give thanks for.

Now I see with much more definition and clarity all that matters and all that I want for us.  My heart has honest room for newness.  I don’t feel as though I’m reaching and grasping for happiness any longer.  Joy simply and fully expanded my heart narrowed in grief preparing it for what’s new.

That is joy on top of joy.  Joy exponential.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1:17, ESV

a shadow.

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He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91:1

"The nights are loneliest."

Standing there in a room of his most loved, he was all alone.  So was I.  I found myself connected to more than words, to the disconnect and fear floating in his eyes.  The years stacked neatly for them.  They were happy.  I could tell by the way he spoke.  The papers that I had for him to sign seemed so insignificant.  His words rang familiar.  She was not yet gone, but close.  Death ready to come and it needed to happen.  She had suffered and battled with disease long enough.  He was waiting as she was letting go.  I had to reel him in out of the sacredness waiting with her, his love, to leave to discuss her end of life care.  He signed the hospice papers, looked long into my eyes and thanked me genuinely.  I heal a bit more every time.  Much like a victim, a survivor, the one remaining shell shocked and moving slower than life surrounding, I watched as he stood tall by her side.  He knew that the path ahead would be trying.  So did I.  It’s the one I’ve been walking.

They all forget.  The next day just happens as the ones before and the ones following.  What's worse is the thought of them remembering at the sight of you.  A walking tragedy, polarized.  The one left to tell of perseverance and the found silver lining.  Most days, especially close to the interruption, you fake it hiding in a facade of strength and learned living.  You get lost in the day. I still forget even now.  Lapses of time, circumstance and reality erase death in fast fleeting moments.  I forget I'm a widower.  I forget I'm alone.  Until night comes and busyness fades with the day.  Then I remember again very well the cause for all this commotion, this upheaval of life.  Disruption.  No one likes to be stopped mid-conversation with words still left to say.  Interrupted and the words left just hanging with no place to land.

There you go.  That's the prickly heart of the matter.  Life interrupted.  Left hanging, suspended and final.

Loneliness is lost.  Deeper than companionship so sweet and identifying is the wandering afterward.  I wander as I wonder.  What of life now?  This dark interlude.  Does it give way to something better?  Some place happier?  Will life again ever resemble the day lost?  Should it?

I am convinced ever so deeply that it will, but when, where, what and how, require trust and faith that is, in spots, thin.

This is nothing new.  I've been lonely since the moment she left.  Many steps through treacherous impasses have made me more honest and bare.  Being honest about being lonely feels good to me signaling stability and security.  Admitting to loneliness for me is saying that I do not know the way, I am searching for place to rest, I need people close to me more now.  I am more vulnerable.  I am weaker.  All signs of greater strength of lasting, guiding value.

Being lonely has never meant being desperate for companionship.  That will come just as soon as it again makes sense, and it will, but that is eternally secondary to finding my way now and discovering purpose in loneliness.  In loneliness, I find great strength.  In solitude, I find solidarity that I've not known before.  Because I need it, it is there.  Companionship with God.  The Author of life littering my path with his graces leading to shelter.  Covering me in storms. Finding me in fog.  Stabilizing me in turbulence.  Allowing me to hide when I need and breathe when I cannot.

A real God finding me amidst real wrong in real life.  This is good and unique.  Dare I even think it, a blessing.

My prayer is that I always remember the bountifulness of these lonely nights leading me to stronger shelter.  One day, probably sooner than later, life will be settled wondrously and clean.  Fuller.  In that goodness, apart from this loneliness, may I always remember this couch, the silence, the distance and the ringing of questions.  For these are the beams of his shelter in which I dwell.

the beholder.

“If we shield the canyons from the wind, the beauty of a new creation may never be gained.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

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Grief never goes away.  To be repetitively honest, I hate writing about it.  Pull the covers back waking to a day supposedly new but eerily much of the same.  Grief wears deep ruts into life and moments lived.   Sunken parts of life pushed in by the weightiness of loss and maybe more so, what is scattered and disjointed remaining hold water stagnating and aged.  Like a rut on a path pushed lower than leveled earth and dirt leading through day and life.  An old friend’s words, dust soft on window blinds, the quiet of night, the hustle of day.  Grief, the most consistently sensed thing in life.  Present though I rudely ignore.  It doesn’t matter.  It didn’t ask for permission.  It doesn’t knock when entering my house.  Grief dwells.  And in day and in night, I repeat.  Words, explanations, descriptions.  I whine and complain and struggle to be free, to be like I used to be.  It’s hard not being who you used to be or reaching for it.  Vacillating between you then and you now.  Memories and familiarity and tomorrow and foreign swing me back and forth.

Then and now. I am both.  I am neither. I am lost and I am found at the same time.

Grief will not go.  It demands attention and forces emotion provoking ugly and inviting the gross, inexpressible parts of me.  In places raw and undefined we must walk revisiting ground not yet completely grown together loose like a dirt filled hole.  Some days are strewn together like a string of lights hanging freely in the air glowing carefree and hopeful.  I look over my shoulder and think, “Wow, I really am standing a long way away from that darkest day!  I have indeed somehow moved quite far!”  With courage taller and stouter and braver then, even the night lights up lively.  I see it, full and changing but better and inviting.  Puzzle pieces troubling and unfit, joining rough edges together.  Miraculous.  Grace.  Happiness.  A bulb goes out in random order.  It’s untelling and unanticipating.  The air lit excited dims and cools.  And I remember the wound still agape.  The memories burn seeping out.  Life is more vacant leaving space for thoughts to roam.  It is here I realize grief never leaves.  Watching us move through each day spying for the moment, waiting for its turn to interact.  And I wonder if grief will ever leave or has it fused into our DNA so closely knit into the fabric of who we are, I am, indistinguishable from happiness and joyfulness forever filtering life?  I don’t know.  It is here now and looks to be fairly stationary and set.

I am neither convinced this is good or bad.  Maybe indifferent, in reality-ful and meaningful ways ...good ways that feel bad like a vaccine conditioning your body to adapting infections.

It leaves me weaker but strengthens me. I feel like a babbling fool unable to shut up about losing, the loser complaining about the conditions keeping him from the win.  But in my babbling, I learn new words that are not my own.  They’re hopeful and deeper than any disturbance rustling around inside.  So this is who I am unshielded from the wind drying death, carving deep lines into my heart.  A new beauty growing.  Creation of something, someone very much like me but a life and death difference of a person.

The new must come.  It will no matter.  We are forced in life to be newly growing and stretching into the unknown, the untrodden or newly withering drooping closer to the dirt that will one day cover us.  Life and death are always roads traveled.  One can be alive, while not fully, but dying in memories and regrets and mistakes.  And so it is as simple as this: push forward into the unknown or die slowly in the dirt familiar.

Life belongs to the beholder, the traveler, the one who does not let go of mercy’s long reach.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most Hight will abide in shadow of the Almighty.  (Amen) Psalm 91:1