Tag: presence

Angels in Charge

“For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”                                                             Psalm 91:11

It was a day. A day of constant reminders, of big emotions, of bigger stressors. A day where I sobbed in church. Where I sobbed at the gym. Where I sobbed at bedtime. Each time triggered by a big move by a bigger God. It was just one of those days.

But the moment at the end…it happened in slow motion. As I watched, frozen, my sweet puffin dove gleefully toward the animal “nest” the girls had created, plummeting toward the bunkbed steps. I saw his knees hit, perfectly angle to propel his body forward, and within a split second, his face slam against the side of the wooden bed step. Internally, I did a mom gasp/shriek/scream/cry, but externally, I physically crumpled to the floor, scooped him up, and just held him. I looked at his face, checked his eyes and surrounding bones, then held him – close – and cried. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.” Sobbed. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.” Rocked and swayed. Thank you, Jesus.

My girls, confused, could not figure out why I was saying a prayer of thanks as my little guy screamed in pain and cried those tears of devastation he has when he’s hurt. They couldn’t see everything happening internally; in my heart, I felt an overwhelming rush of emotional awareness, gratitude, and grace. Of realization of what could have gone differently, so very wrong, with the slightest torque of body or bend of stuffed animals. And I cried harder.

Blake Eye

The puffin received a kiss of angels that evening. I know it in the depths of my soul. That day, from the get-go, God was reaching to me. Speaking to me. Sending people my way in impromptu prayer. And in one all-encompassing incident, the envelope was sealed: “Here I am. Trust. Me.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying my littlest was hurt as a way to send me a message. While I think those moments happened to an extent in biblical passages, I don’t believe God intentionally causes physical harm in the day to day. But as I looked at his healing scab tonight, it washed over me all over again, like an ocean wave that takes you by surprise: just because we get hurt, it doesn’t mean God turned away.

And I knew this. Oh, how I knew this. But tonight? It sunk in a little deeper. Hard times? God doesn’t leave. Grieving? Still present. Overwhelmed? Yep, He’s there. You lost your job, your spouse, your kids, your home? God is present, loving, gracious, and looking out.  When my 6-year-old can gush during an everyday conversation, “I just love how God loves us so much that He cares about that“, it requires a gut check to remember just how much He really loves us. How much do I love my kids? And His love is SO MUCH MORE!

My precious reader, He has not turned His back on you. When your heart is open, when your mind is ready, open your eyes. Look around, be present, and pay attention. He’s speaking to you, and He wants you to know He has not abandoned you. Sometimes, His saving grace may look a little differently than you had imagined.

Don’t Stop Believing

This song. This concept. This idea. It’s overused. But when dissected, it continues to ring so very true.

We used this song at our wedding reception entrance. My husband and I both loved Journey, and this genre had composed much of our childhoods and our parents’ music. Isn’t it funny how, when we are young and innocent, we compose ideas that we have no idea how true they may become? But what’s more, isn’t it “funny” how deeply memories can run and how random circumstances align to bring them all to the front?

At night, somehow our family transitioned from singing songs to playing songs on YouTube, often classical, as part of our daily bedtime routine. My husband insisted on beginning to teach them the classics, and it stuck…a little too hard. They now request two of three songs. Every. Night. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m a sucker for tradition, repetition, and consistency. But…well…the songs get played out. As an episode of HIMYM depicted in a long road trip and a stuck car cassette tape, “it comes around again”…and every once in awhile, the song hits.

Tonight, as I lay in bed with my oldest, our normal “quiet, in bed” song ‘Moonlight Sonata’ ended. My oldest begged me to stay another “one couple minute” before going to my middle’s bed and so, as YouTube has it, another song began. Tonight, it happened to be the third of our three…’Canon in D’, or, as my girls have dubbed it, “the marry song”.

Guys, I have listened to this song a thousand times. Honestly, likely more. It plays at Christmas. It plays at weddings. It plays in our evening routine and in our classical piano Pandora “get-the-kids-to-fall-asleep-in-the-car” playlist. Heck, it was the song I requested played as I walked down the aisle myself in lieu of the traditional wedding march. I have heard it played by piano, harp, guitar, and everything in between. But tonight…tonight, the synapses flared, connected…and punched me in the gut. Tonight, I had flashbacks of my wedding…and my dad walking me down the aisle.

It’s funny how the paths fire from there. I have fully watched my wedding video maybe one (or two) other times…the most recent being last September. (Of course, I think of my dad often, but not often in the depth of “holy crap, he’s gone” mentality…well…not as often as it used to be.) But tonight – tonight hit me like a ton of bricks. Tonight swarmed me with memories and smells and senses that I thought were lost. Experiences I thought I was no longer capable of remembering. So, of course, I went straight to our pile of CDs and watched the wedding video, slightly disappointed at the lack of footage of the classic father/daughter dance but delighted at close ups of my dad walking me down the aisle and cracking jokes. Enthralled with watching his face as he danced with my mom. Ecstatic at just seeing him be him. “Don’t Stop Believing” was our reception entrance, so of course, I watched that too, and enjoyed once again the thrill of the wedding reception entrance and the celebration that ensued. As I completed paperwork later tonight, one of my guilty-pleasure sitcom reruns (don’t judge…I was in “glee club” too…) played a flashback episode, performing “Don’t Stop Believing” with a now deceased actor in a lead part. Yes. I lost it again. For the third time this night.

But the point. To continue with the theme of seasons, my memory, my health, my mind, my emotions…they were in a winter. I couldn’t remember experiences, even with my hardest attempt. I could literally barely remember the day before in spite of practicing mindfulness even in a moment I wanted to hold, so without extreme intentionality and a direct (unknown) trigger, I could not recall a whole heck of a lot. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t process in my head, I could barely hear my own thoughts in the midst of dead silence and stillness and struggled to think things through. I honestly feared I was watching a vault close on a very deep, important, intricate, and complex part of what has always made me who I am.

A few days ago, my family and I traveled to Hampton Roads and used many of the roads and areas of our old stomping grounds…my work, our old church, routes we took, places we camped…and a flood of memories I couldn’t even fully bring to consciousness began to come. Things I never thought I’d remember and just added to the list of the “unknown life” that had been my past. A time that stress and overwhelm and extremities and changes pushed into the depths of the darkness that had become “my story” and my past.

But tonight I think I’m forming a new hypothesis of how memories…and memory recall work. Tonight gives me hope that not only is a vault not closing, but that there are areas of my brain that can still be awakened. Tonight I felt a sense that perhaps – just perhaps – those memories in times of great stress and struggle are still formed, but require something a little bit different to bring to recollection, and that there is a possibility that the person I was, the person I could be, isn’t gone at all.

Tonight, I realized that if I keep believing, I just might find me again.