Five Minute Friday {And Then Some}: Ache

Everything's changed.
Nothing is the same anymore.
And you would think that with all 33 years of me, that wouldn't be a surprise...

Yet...it is.

Relationships have changed...distanced....some family...some friends, and I find myself at a loss of what to do or say anymore.

I used to blame myself -- this cursed, silent, invisible illness that plagues my days and my nights preventing me from living "normal" in the world. I used to blame that drastic earthquake that not only shook building but also me -- right to the core. I blamed that lonely place of infertility where people fear to tread and eventually walk away. I blamed my inner battle to allow people into these struggles and my blessed pride that pushed people away.

I blamed everyone. I blamed God.
And now ... I just do not know anymore.
Placing blame isn't really fair and it changes nothing

And yet....that ache...that miserable ache won't go, won't stay away.
That longing for what "used" to be, even if just in "feeling."

I am tired of the trying, tired of the questions, tired of the wondering, tired of all the whys, tired of the try-hards and the do-betters.

I cannot.
And maybe THAT is just the point.
This strong little fighter girl in me who just does not want to quit, who never says die, who will not yield or surrender, must learn to trust in Him who takes all the aches and wipes every tear from our eyes.

Give all your worries and cares to God,

for he cares about you.

I Peter 5:7

In the day of my trouble I will call upon You,

For You will answer me.

Psalm 86:7

I couldn't help thinking of this song that I learned as a little girl, "I Cast All My Cares," so I looked it up and found the version with Psalty the Singing Song book that I used to listen to, and it brought tears to my hear it and remember His faithfulness to me my whole life and how as an adult I try to solve things for myself. I hope this "kids' song" will encourage you like it does me.

If you cannot see this video, click here.

This is MY story {Haiti Earthquake Revisited}

It's funny how some moments in your life you remember SO clearly.
How you felt.
What you were doing.
What the sounds around you were.
What people said or did.
The way time seemed to slow down.
Two years ago today was a day like that for me.

I had just fallen into that deep sleep when the phone rang, which wasn't really that strange to me, having lived the pastoral life for most of my existence. Groaning, Arno trudged out of bed to answer the incessant ringing of his phone after we missed the call on my phone. I knew something was off if someone had tried my phone first at 1 am. As the campus pastor, Arno's phone was accessible to people 24/7 but my number was not out there like his was. So I stumbled out of bed after him. As I hit the hallway of our tiny South African apartment, I think my heart bottomed out to the floor when I saw his ashen face.

"What is it? Just tell me," I said with that monotone calm that often surrounds my body when steeling myself for impending doom.

"That was Ben. There has just been an earthquake in Haiti,

and your sister cannot reach your parents."

Being an "oldest," my "I'll-solve-the-problem" drive kicked into gear. I pulled out my address book, grabbed my phone & computer and planted myself on the corner of the couch with the built-in ottoman, planning to reach my parents within minutes, to confirm how this whole thing was just "blown out of proportion" and then to go back to sleep to rest for the busy day ahead.

Little did I know that I would sit for hours in that exact spot, with little desire to rest or to eat or to drink or even to go to the bathroom. It's like time stood still for hours upon hours. My sister and I held a vigil over Skype that would last throughout my night {7 hours ahead} and hers. {Have I said, "Thank you!" yet this year for the amazing wonder that is technology?}

My emotions ran the gamut -- trust, fear, sorrow, worry, stress, faith, anxiety, hope, concern, belief. In those agonizing hours, I was so thankful for our upbringing of faith through the fire because my sister and I never spoke one word of negativity to each other nor did we listen to anyone who tried to give us fatalistic false reports.

We called and chatted and facebooked and Skyped and tweeted anyone who knew any shred of news, checking on our multitude of childhood friends and their families, hearing they were safe, or not, and then always, "No, we haven't heard from Mom & Dad yet. Would you ask your parents? Do they know what is happening on Delmas?"

Over and over and over again.
The same conversations.
The same results.

"We haven't heard from your parents"

"Parts of Delmas are impassible"

The presidential palace - picture from Boston.com

"Thank you. Glad you are okay," typed out on the screen seemed not enough.

How do you capture such a magnitude of dread and relief in just a few words?

You cannot....and really no one cared or expected it. We were all surviving in this kind of living statis, needing very little, wanting to just hear one line, "It's all a dream."

Yet, it would not be so. As the hours dragged on, the realization that this nightmare was now my reality became more and more apparent. So I steeled my mind towards dawn, dawn in Haiti. I rationalized, "The earthquake happened at 5 o'clock so Dad couldn't leave Mom and Carole to get to a phone because it would be dangerous in the dark, so as soon as he can in the morning, he will go out and find a way to get in touch with us."

So we waited. Me with this secret belief, "There will be an answer at dawn because it is always 'darkest' before the dawn, right? Right?" My personal thoughts rang hollow in my own ears and yet I held on to my conviction, able to snatch an hour or two of sleep, resting my faith in this dogged determination of mine.

And as the hour struck 6, and then 7, and then 8, my mind rationalized the realities, plotted street routes, worked out reasons why and where and what until finally I found my heart about to burst into the hysterical and my thoughts plagued with the worst conclusion, "What if they are dead? What if I never see them again?"

I heard myself say to my sister, "I have to get off of here. I am not thinking right any more," barely hearing her give me an answer.

Off to my room I went, and I began to weep from the depths of my soul, "You promised me. You promised me, Lord. You promised me that my parents would see their children's children. You promised me. It cannot end like this. I cannot lose them this way. I JUST saw them a few days ago. We had Christmas together. We picked out a tree. We celebrated. We laughed. Oh God, what if I never hear them laugh again? Please God, oh please, God. Please don't take them from me. Please do not let them be gone."

Then, right there, in the quietest and most persistent of ways, He flooded me with His peace, His love, His assurance, His understanding, a reminder that He IS who He says He is. And He tore back the fabric of time for just a moment and I could see them playing and wrestling with their grandchildren. They were strong and agile, not feeble or decrepit. They were most definitely ALIVE!

With peace in my heart now overpowering the relentless anxiety in my chest, I rose up from that place with renewed vigor and purpose.

However, the wait was not yet over.

One last hurdle of faith had to be jumped -- the moment my sister and I had to put our parents on the search & rescue list. It was like being in a Hollywood movie, watching actors play out parts in a drama that had now become my reality. I do not know how adequate words can ever truly thank Yvonne Trimble, Troy & Tara Livesay, The Labadys, and Keith Flanagan for understanding our compelling desperation, stranded miles away unable to forge ahead on our own to see the two we loved more than any other save our husbands, and setting out to give us answers....whatever that might be.

And finally and possibly the greatest moment filled with unspeakable emotion, when those 2 little words, "We're here," popped up on my screen from my mom's Facebook account.

Throughout the nearly-18 hours of waiting, words of love and prayers were feeding through on my mom's page, and while the encouragement was like a healing balm, the words of the enemy would say, "What if she never reads these words? What if this page becomes a memorial to them?" So the moment her chat window popped live, tears fell unabashedly down my face as simultaneously my sister and I typed, "Thank God!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The journey from that moment until now has been long and hard not just for my family, but for the hundreds of thousands affected by this horrible disaster, and yet, as I type these words, I stand in awe at the faithfulness of a God who SEES what we cannot see, who understands us better than we do ourselves, who knows the beginning from the end.

This is my story.

This is my song.

Praising my Savior,

all the day long.

This is my story.

This is my song.

Praising my Savior,

all the say long.

~Blessed Assurance

When God Writes Your Story

This post is inspired by Sara Markley writing at (in)courage today about trusting God to write your story, even when it doesn't turn out like YOU thought it would.

I have had a very angry-at-times-but-mostly-keeping-at-arms-length connection with God over the past year or so, as I realized that if I was honest with myself, I am NOT where I thought I would be at 32.

I remember thinking one day, "I would hate to have to talk to my 21-year-old self because I think she would be disappointed."

I do realize that other people looking at my life, might not think that. I am married to the love of my life AND I have travelled to quite a few countries AND even lived in a couple of them long term. I have worked in full time ministry for over 10 years and loved people until it hurt. Just to name a few of the amazing blessings in my life.

And yet.....

In the past two years, Mom & Dad were in the Haiti earthquake of 2010, my health has been a MAJOR issue, my husband & I have been trying to get pregnant for 3 years, and we are taking a "time-out" from full time ministry among other "things" that I could list.

Some days.....well, honestly....every day, I have to remind myself that HE doesn't make mistakes. He is not abandoning me OR punishing me. He doesn't love me less than the next girl because I am not a biological mommy yet or because I am not ministering full time at the moment.

But am I happy with MY STORY?

That is a loaded question for me. I have realized this past year that happiness is overrated, and that my joy is ONLY made complete in Him, through Him, by Him, & ultimately FOR Him.

So no, I am not "happy" but I HAVE TO/MUST DO/CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT daily looking into His face and finding where the source of my "joy" rests - HIM and ONLY HIM.

At the end of 2010, I realized that there was a message that my Father was so desperately trying to speak to me.....GRACE! GRACE! GRACE!

Grace for the journey.

Grace for my weaknesses.

Grace for the world around me.

Grace to see WHAT HE SEES when He looks at me, when He looks at people.

So when those words of doubt, failure, regret, shame come....EVERY DAY.....I just remind myself to accept his grace all over again!

And IF He is great enough, faithful enough, merciful enough to give me such unmerited favor, how can I NOT trust HIM to keep writing my story?

How do you feel about where your story is NOW? Do you trust Him to keep writing your story?

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,

the master calls a butterfly

~ Richard Bach

20 Questions for 2010

I thought I would share my thoughts of my own reflections of 2010 to keep me accountable to do it, and I hope that you will join me either in your comments below, on your own blog, or in a personal journal. I would love to hear what last year meant to you, so would you consider sharing your answer to even just one of the questions below....??

Happy Reading, Processing, and Writing!

1. What was the single best thing that happened this past year?

~God saved my parents and so many loved ones in the January 12 Haiti earthquake



2. What was the single most challenging thing that happened?

~Waiting 18 hours to hear from my parents after the initial quake

3. What was an unexpected joy this past year?

~Spending Christmas with my family


4. What was an unexpected obstacle?

~Still not having our own little one by the end of this year

5. Pick three words to describe 2010.

~Hard. Challenging. Milestone.

6. Pick three words your spouse would use to describe your 2010 (don’t ask them; guess based on how you think your spouse sees you).

~Hard. Scary. Heart-breaking.

7. Pick three words your spouse would use to describe their 2010 (again, without asking).

~Tough. Challenging. Faith-building.

8. What were the best books you read this year?

~Hinds Feet on High Places, My Utmost for His Highest (partial), and my beloved, Anne of Green Gables series




9. With whom were your most valuable relationships?

~My husband, my parents, my sister, Pastors Bert & Charne, some KINDRED besties (you know who you are!)

10. What was your biggest personal change from January to December of this past year?

~Moving from South Africa to America



11. In what way(s) did you grow emotionally?

~Discovering some of my key weaknesses and how much I "can't" do alone

12. In what way(s) did you grow spiritually?

~Revelled in the amazing grace of God in ways that I never expected

13. In what way(s) did you grow physically?

~Learning how to slow down, rest, listen to my body, regroup, and to stop trying to prove something to myself and/or others by how MUCH I can do (still learning.....)

14. In what way(s) did you grow in your relationships with others?

~WOW! I value people EVEN more than I did before, and I was raised with that appreciation but it increased infinitely in the past year.

15. What was the most enjoyable part of your work (both professionally and at home)?

~Connecting with "my people" -- disciples, co-workers, leaders -- sharing Jesus & life together

16. What was the most challenging part of your work (both professionally and at home)?

~Figuring out how to balance my love for the work and the people with my physical health

17. What was your single biggest time waster in your life this past year?

~Probably TV

18. What was the best way you used your time this past year?

~Learning to spend time receiving the love of the Father, starting & working on this blog, encouraging others when I can, connecting with friends {new & old} who have encouraged me

19. What was biggest thing you learned this past year?

~"I" have to stop trying to do EVERYTHING in my life and relationship with God in my own strength and ability

20. Create a phrase or statement that describes 2010 for you.

~My grace is sufficient for you, and My power is made perfect in your weaknesses...

30 Days of Hope: Day 25 - Haiti Earthquake, Part 2

In my last post, I talked about what it felt like waiting and not knowing if my parents were safe, hurt, or alive after the earthquake rocked Haiti on January 12th. As I mentionned, I will never forget how I felt in those moments. I spoke with a counselor friend of mine a couple of months ago, and she said that something like this happening to those you love changes your life, your security forever creating a new reality, a new view of the world that HAS to be accepted in order for you to move forward with your life.

And as intense as it was in my life -- we waited 18 hours; some people waited for days. Some have never found their family members --dead or alive. And then there are others that have been reunited after months of thinking their loved one was dead like in this story.

This catastophic event is filled with triumphs & tragedies, joys & sorrows, agony & hope from the miraculous stories of babies found alive & alone days after the initial quake, to the flattening of the most well known tourist hotel outside of the capital of Port-au-Prince killing many instantly and others days later, to the people trapped in a grocery store who were kept alive eating peanut butter(and other grocery items) waiting for rescue, to the emergency workers of ALL kinds & nationalities who tirelessly searched, treated, fed, organized for days, and to the missionaries and expatriates and nationals still rebuilding this nation cracked to the core.


After I knew that my parents were safe (and even in the hours before), the magnitude of what had happened to "my" people, "my" country was impossible to grasp. It still is to me in so many ways. I haven't been able to go back yet, and I try to think and to imagine the "life I knew" so changed -- my high school partially collapsed, the grocery store we frequently patronized completely collapsed, the home & ministry building that I grew up with extensively damaged with partial collapses, families split in half by death, and approximately 300,000 people gone in one incident, one shift of the earth. I have seen the pictures, watched the videos, read the reports, and heard the stories like many of you have, but like any photo or story, it captures & paints a moment and an emotion but not the full magnitude of the reality of what those there saw and felt.

I don't claim to have all or really any easy or quick answers for exactly HOW this island is going to recover physically, emotionally, mentally...it WILL take time. However, in my search for hope, I can tell you that I have found it in God -- in His Word, through the Holy Spirit, in the faces of the people of this beautiful island who have chosen, in spite of it all, to put their trust, their faith, their hope in the God who has never abadoned them in the face of their deepest trials.




The nation of Haiti is moving forward............

30 Days of Hope: Day 24 - Haiti Earthquake, Part 1

This journey of hope has been so crazy, and as this is the last week of this topic, I want to share in my next few posts a bit more personally of why I needed this journey.

This year began with hope and excitement -- 2010!! I even did research on the number 10 -- the number of perfection of Divine order - perfect completion. I was excited and hopeful for what the Lord had placed in my heart for this year. I KNEW I was going to see the fulfillment of some of my dreams and His promises THIS year, and then.....January 12th happened.

It started as an ordinary day...I don't really remember everything that happened that day -- that is how ordinary it was. It was just normal and insignificant. I got up. I went to work. I taught a Bible study. I came home. I made supper. I watched T.V. with my hubby. I went to bed.

At about 1 am (South African time), Arno's phone rang. I was very out of it and I like my sleep so at first felt annoyed with the phone call and then realized, "No one calls in the middle of the night unless something is wrong." In fact, living as a missionary kid in Haiti, I remember my parents trying to hide alarm if the phone ever rang after 11 p.m. During my college years and since, if I called my parents "late" or at a time they were not expecting, I heard the tension in their voices until I would say, "It's okay. I'm okay. I just wanted to say, 'Hi!'" Although for years, the fear was always unfounded, when the phone rang that night, I understood the panic that had filled my mom's voice and eyes for years in those moments.

The phone call was my sister's husband, Ben. An earthquake had rocked my little island of Haiti, the country of my birth, the home of my "first" people about an hour before, and they couldn't reach my parents.....

I couldn't tell you one word that I said in that moment, but I will never forget how I felt for as long as I live. You can ask anyone who knows me very well -- I am Miss Calm, Cool, & Collected under pressure, so I immediately went into action and solving it mode. Being that it was 1 am and I didn't have satellite TV, there was no news about the earthquake on TV, so I immediately got on my computer because I was determined to "get to the bottom of this." I was sure that Kasi (my sister) and Ben were just dramatizing things. I was SO sure that when I called my parents phones, I would get right through and see that they had panicked over nothing.

I called and called and called and called every number my parents have -- home number, ministry number, cell numbers -- and then I started calling other missionaries in Haiti whose numbers I had -- over and over and over again. Nothing.....no one answered....no one....no one.

My sister and I got on Skype and both sat on our computers prepared to begin our "tracking-our-parents-down" operation. We didn't realize it at the time but this would be where we stay for almost 18 hours. There was a comfort we found in being connected to each other. I have thanked God hundreds of times since that day for modern technology and internet at home to be able to have that comfort of "being together." We couldn't hold and hug each other so we brainstormed and we planned and we searched and we called and we e-mailed and we prayed.

I have waited so long to write about this because I haven't known just how to express the many feelings and emotions and thoughts that plagued my mind and heart and body in those hours.

How could I express to you the level of pain, fear, & uncertainty that racked my being?

How could I share it in a way that made sense, that connected you to my journey, that expressed my heart in those moments, that gave you a window into the depths of emptiness that I felt and that showed you how REAL God was in that time?

I still don't know if I have all the words and as I write this post, tears stream down my face. You see, my parents are my heroes.

Tom and Bev Brumbley went to Haiti when they were 19 and 20. They had a daughter when they were 21 & 22. 10 months later, she was killed when the plane they were in crashed on their way back to Haiti. A year and a half later, they went through a miscarriage. They eventually had me and my sister and raised us in Haiti. While we were growing up there were coup d'etats, bomb threats to the ministry building, dictator overthrown, political upheavals, xenophobic fears, and much more. Yet, they raised us to be women of character to face every trial and joy with grace and faith.

They taught us laughter in the storms by re-writing old praise songs with us..."Praise Him. Praise Him. Praise Him when their shooting. Praise Him when their looting," or "Praise Him with the generator's broke. Praise Him when the truck's broke down."

They taught us faith in trials by telling us that after their first daughter Jodi died, they, as my Mom says, "hung onto Jesus for all they were worth."

They taught us victory in heartache by opening up the ministry building to let people come and vote in the first democratic election in over 100 years.

They taught us strength of character in showing us how to stand up for ourselves by not being afraid of being ourselves -- "Be true to yourself and to the Lord."

They taught us SO MUCH more that I could probably start a 2nd blog just with their life lessons over the years.

In those moments and hours, the torment of these questions went through my mind.

Would I hear my mom laugh again? Would I get to banter about the "apple not falling far from the tree" with my dad? Would I ever hug them again? Would they get to see their grandchildren? Would my children have the benefit of the wisdom of these two beautiful people?

I cannot explain to you what it felt like to be contacting people in Haiti (once we finally got through) to place my parents on the "search-and-rescue" list. That was one of the most agonizing moments of my life.

For 14 hours, my sister and I NEVER spoke one fear or negative word. I say this as a tribute to my parents and how they raised us. But at hour 15, I told my sister, "I have to get off of here and go pray. I'm not thinking right any more."

I went then and poured my heart out to my Father. I said, "God, you promised me. You promised me. YOU promised me that my parents would see their children's children. YOU PROMISED ME!!!!" I cried and cried and soon I felt this overwhelming peace like a blanket holding, comforting, and caressing me. He showed me a picture, a vision, an image -- whatever you want to call it -- of my parents playing with their (yet unborn) grandchildren, laughing and tickling and energetic and active. And the verse that the Father reminded me of was this - "....this sickness will not lead unto death." I know this might not sound exactly applicable to you, but it comforted my totured soul, and 30 minutes later I got back on the phone with my sister with a renewed sense of peace

About an hour and a half later, my sister and were still talking, searching, calling, hoping and almost simultaneously, my mom's Facebook chat popped up on our computers. Immediately, we both wrote back, "Mom? THANK GOD!"

(Click HERE for Part 2 of my Haiti Earthquake story)

30 Days of Hope: Day One

So I have decided to write about HOPE for the next 30 days.

Why? Well, even though, it might sound like "something I would write about" or "who you think I am" or maybe you are just reading just to see if there will be anything to this....HA! But it is something that I have lost--HOPE--and thanks to the inspiration of my pastor, Pastor Charne....I have decided to go on a journey to re-discover it again.

This is a challenge for me personally because every day doesn't always feel like a DAY of HOPE, and this past year has been especially hard to "keep my chin up". So, I will daily share a Scripture, a quote, a song, etc, and then I will share my thoughts, journey, and lessons learned. My first goal is to renew hope in my own heart, but I also hope that it will encourage you and help you on your own journey too, so I will share as openly as I can.

"These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitudes, leading the procession to the house of God with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." --Psalm 42:4-6

Today when I read this I pictured myself doing those things -- leading worship, leading cells, counseling people, dancing, shouting -- and the picture wasn't a wish. It was a remembrance, a memory...and that has been the sadness that I have found in my heart these past months -- the joys in my life, the person that I love to be, the passion that I was born with -- all these things seemed to be a memory, a part of my past, a place where I had passed through but never would again.

Today after reading this verse, I got some news that threatened to shatter the little flame of hope that had begun to burn in my heart, and while I can't share with you this heart-piercing news just yet, I KNOW that I will.....because I have HOPE that the outcome of what the devil has meant for destruction, for ruin, for discouragement, for despair, my GOD will turn this around.

How can I hope in the face of my greatest dream being threatened? How can I trust when it seems the deepest desire of my natural life is so far out of reach?

While, I don't have that answer for you, I can tell you this.....

I realized this week that I have spent a lot of nights, days, moments, months being angry at God.

"Why did the earthquake happen in Haiti?"

"Why did I come so close to losing the two people who have shaped me most significantly -- my mom and dad?"

"Why does it seems so hard for us to have our own children?"

Why? Why? Why? Why?

"WHY?"-- my favorite word as a child if you ask my parents...:) Then the word was filled with wonder and hope and discovery! These days the same word has been filled with heartbreak and angst and pain.

BUT!

"No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame..." --Psalm 25:3

So yet I will praise Him, I will choose Him, I will depend on Him even when my patience, my faith, my heart falters....where else can I go....forever I determine to RUN after HIM!

"Never let go of hope. One day you will see that it has finally come together. What you have always wished for has finally come to be. You will look back and laugh at what has passed and you will ask yourself, 'How did I get through all of that?'"

HOPE!