Through the Fire

I hugged her quickly and kissed her velvety soft cheek this morning as we went our separate ways.  She’s been gone this last month, back in Providence to fight for strength and freedom from her injuries.  The first two weeks of this year’s physical therapy stent were spent with Papa and Jonathan, and the remaining time Aunt Deb has been loving on her.  Knowing that she wouldn’t be gone for five and half months like last year didn’t seem to calm the ache in my chest as I sent her away, however.  It feels so incredibly wrong to send my child away from side to go and fight for her health.  I’m a doctor.  I’m her mother.  Somehow sending her away feels like it violates both of those major roles in my life; like I’m somehow violating the unspoken oath of motherhood and the oath I took on the day I was given my degree from medical school.  As she was packing a knot rose in my throat as the echoes of my fears and self condemnation resonated inside my head.  “She left last year for two months, and came home almost six months later.  Are you sure this is only going to be a month?  You can’t be.  You should be near her, she needs you, and you are going to work instead.  What if she hurts and you can’t help her?  What if she gets worse like last year?  She may not really continue to get strong.  This is probably the wrong decision.  Being together is what our family does best.  What is wrong with you that you can work like nothing else is going on while she struggles?”  And interestingly, that inner monologue is always in my own voice.  I hear my own voice condemning me…that’s messed up.  But thankfully I have had quite a bit of practice surrendering these last two and half years; surrendering my timelines, my expectations, my fears, my striving, and my personal condemnation.  Giving those over and into the hands of God who loves me has become easier than it ever had been before.  (Let’s be real here, I didn’t do much surrendering of those inner thought lines before we survived that cold night.)

Last year when I visited her in Rhode Island I made the most of every moment, and I left her as we both sobbed uncontrollably; because she was so fragile, and still so broken.  We both wept bitter hot tears because there was so much that was still uncertain, and only having been in Providence for a month she actually hadn’t even reached the absolute bottom of the slide of her unraveling health.  Leaving then shredded me, and the memory of that wound also came to the surface as she packed to leave last month.  But today, as we said goodbye on the corner of 8^th Avenue and 34th Street,  I kissed her radiant, smooth, smiling face, and then grabbed a quick hug from her brother, Jacob.  (Who, of note, is not soft and gentle, with silky skin.  He is tall and filling out.  He has stubble on his cheeks, and his increasingly muscular arms have become a source of safety and strength as he is growing into such a kind man.)  Then I turned and caught my ride to the airport.

We met this weekend in New York City, for a whirlwind 48 hours, to explore a city that is nothing like home.  The trip was to serve two purposes, explore the city, and deposit Jacob with her and Aunt Deb for Naomi’s remaining week in Providence, Rhode Island.   The contrast between this weekend (actually this whole summer) and last year is….staggering.  She has been working diligently since hitting rock bottom physically last summer to regain a life that is functional and vibrant.  We have been praying over her as a family, joined by our sweet cheerleaders in life; faithfully believing that God is going to deliver her from a life of only pain and profound limitations.  Slowly, it has seemed at times, she has been gaining strength.  She has worked at a local bakery/café this summer.  She has caught up in school.  We can see more stability.  More endurance.  More radiance.  More smiling.  Less pain every day.  Many fewer headaches that leave her crippled in a dark and quite room.  And this weekend she was able to enjoy the long hours more than she has been able to enjoy days in all this time since the wreck.  

Our family is fully aware of the endless pit of Jacob’s stomach as well as his EPIC pool of available energy.  Together with Aunt Deb, the three of us smiled and laughed and drank in all that we could in just two days.  And Naomi was able to hang with her baby brother just about as well as Deb and I could!  We ate amazing foods; a stark contrast from last year’s weight loss as she could barely keep food down.  We cried together over the senseless loss of life on 9/11, and we sat in the somber and hollowed space where thousands of people took their last breaths on a day long before any of my children were in my arms.  In the last two years we haven’t been able to spend much time in the space of another’s pain, as constant pain in our own household has consumed our coping strategies.  But we have been saved for more life, and slowly her pain has become less debilitating; so we are opening our eyes and hearts again to the brokenness around us.  We watched a classic musical production, and felt our hearts swell with the emotional highs and lows that can only ever be experienced by music and art done well; arts that flavor our lives with texture and intrigue.  Even Jacob enjoyed The Phantom of the Opera, well at least the second half.  He was asking Sissy if it was almost over after the first scene in the first act!  Thankfully he stuck it out, and enjoyed himself. 

We had our eyeballs assaulted around Times Square by nearly naked people who shook body parts I don’t feel I should have to see outside the confines of my exam rooms at the office.  And we laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.  The kids were no help or encouragement after their nearly 43 year old mother was pulled from the on-looking crowd into a street performance on Friday night.  Horrified, I was pulled from the safety of the crowd (bra-less!!!!!) into the middle of a quite hysterical street dancing and acrobatic performance.  How I came to be bra-less in public will forever go down in the lore of our family and heretofore be filed under the, “never leave the house/hotel room without all the proper undergarments” life-tips for success.  Incidentally, I could not stop hearing my grandmother’s voice, “always wear clean underwear, you never know what might happen, you could end up on a hospital gurney with your pants cut off and everyone will see!”  I’m pretty sure she wasn’t giving precautionary advice regarding wearing bras in public squares in case of spontaneous public performances…but I am certain her general theme would have applied to my situation on Friday night. 

Which leads me to another time that her words rang through my head; the night of our wreck.  Quite literally I found myself on a hospital gurney, with my pants being cut off of me.  I will not lie, in the middle of what felt quite literally like hell around me, I heard her sweet voice, and did a quick mental assessment of which underwear I had put on that morning.  Thank God, they didn’t have holes.  And in Times Square, at the beginning of a wonderful weekend, memories from that night visited me again...just like that, it's really always just beneath the surface of any moment.  And really that story is only important here as I point out my last few thoughts about the contrasts of this weekend, and our lives before the wreck and since. 

The last time I was in NYC was with Naomi at 8 years old, and we were also with Aunt Deb.  We had come for almost a full week.  We enjoyed our time and we crammed in quite a few more adventures.  But I remember who I was then, and I love who I’ve become now.  Naomi was eight and whole and healthy, but she was only my daughter then.  She is now one of my most sacred and precious friends.  We have always been a family who love each other well, and now we are family who have been tested through fire (and in some ways the fire is still ongoing).  It feels as though we are becoming forged in steel; our hearts interwoven through the bonding that comes in battle.  And each member of our little (or large) stick together crew is coming out the other side of this inferno more radiant with Jesus.  That is what God does.  He takes the circumstances and catastrophes in our lives and He turns them into beauty.  He has promised that He would.  He fights for the good of those who love Him.  How I wish that verse said that He allows only good in the lives of those who love Him.  But that’s not how it goes.  He promises never to leave us, never to forsake us, in the sufferings and triumphs we will face in this life.  And sometimes He even gives us fellow sojourners to face the inferno with…but even alone He will never leave us.

Eight years ago our family was all intact.  Well, Faith and Mimi weren’t even in our family yet.  But we had health, and had only weathered a few speed bumps along the paths of our lives.  This year, we are different.  Weaker physically, although I believe that is not forever, but stronger spiritually than we could have even began to comprehend eight years ago.  And this morning, at Hillsong Church, we listened a sermon on the purpose for and redemption of the fires in our lives.  Our very attendance there today is a redemption of part of the struggles we have faced since that fated night. 

For several months after the wreck we couldn’t physically attend our sweet local church.  I was broken so profoundly, and the recliners in our bedroom had become our hospital rehab ward.  Naomi couldn’t tolerate to be in a room with more than one or two quiet voices at a time, so church wasn’t really in the cards for her either.  So we would sit on Sunday mornings and tune into the Hillsong channel and listen to Pastor Carl Lenz preach animated sermons.  His sermon notes filled my journal in those early weeks.  His presentation of God’s word was like manna from Heaven in those wilderness months; and yet we so longed to be a part of our own local church family.  In any case, God blessed us while we needed it, and in the way that we could receive it; seated in the safety and quite of our home.  But today?  Today we walked into a theater in New York City where Hillsong Church meets, and we experienced God’s profound goodness, in person. 

The lyrics of the introductory worship set were unfamiliar, and yet they were powerful.  And then an absolutely stunning woman came up with a choir and was joined by the entire worship team and began singing “Another in the Fire,” gospel rendition.  Oh.  My.  Word.  So very powerful.  Pastor Carl, freshly back from travel with his family, began to preach his sermon, “Through the Fire.”  He opened to Daniel 3, and before he read he proclaimed, that there is also another person in the fire with us.  He encouraged us to lift our weary eyes, to see God with us.  Then he read about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago standing in the fire that was so hot their jailers burned up while throwing the three men in.  And when the King, whose rage had burned against them because they wouldn’t bow to him or his gods, looked in upon them, he saw four men in the fire.  Stunned he brought them out and they were not harmed.  They were not charred.  There wasn’t even the smell of smoke upon them, as if God himself was saying that His followers will not even be touched by the fires they go through.

He went on to speak these beautiful truths about fires in our lives.  Fire locates us, as we are often moving in the right directions when we come under intense attacks.  God also sends his brightest light in the darkest areas.  Fire reveals you.  Who God really creates you to be.  Small steps in the fire will often lead to BIG BIG BREAKTHROUGHS.  And finally fires push you into experiencing something greater than your could ever create on your own.  And this weekend we are living the reality of that message.   Through the furnace of affliction we have seen very clearly God’s radiant light shining through our darkest nights.  We have never met a “dead end,” only the doors to move forward towards healing and restoration.  This season of our lives has revealed to us and our dearest friends the people whom God always wanted us to be.  We have learned that to gaze upon Him, the Creator in approachable LIGHT, has conferred upon us radiance; even, and I would dare say especially, in the darkest nights along this path we are on.  And we are fully in the middle of experiencing God’s extravagant love in the midst of what would have appeared to be our undoing.  Naomi’s story is a story of overcoming, but not because her parents are resourceful, or she is tenacious and resolved.  She is overcoming and living a life that is more abundant because of the fire she is in.   She is becoming the person she could never have been without this fire because her Creator is always with her, encouraging her, strengthening her, and fighting for her.

So this weekend I flew across the country, far away from the green rolling hills and beautiful mountains that are home, to see my sweet oldest baby, and bring her Jacob to help keep her entertained for this last week of East Coast physical therapy.  I flew all that way so that we could make memories and share in the sweetness of life together.  And in the middle of the most stimulating city I’ve ever experienced, God showed up;  Big Time in the Big Apple.  He showed me that I really love who He has made us to be, and I don’t need to continue to grieve the loss of who we were.  They are gone.  We are here, more radiant because He has never left us.  He opened my eyes to the beauty that He is continuing to work in Naomi’s life.  He redeemed/reshaped/remodeled memories as far back as my childhood.  And He even redeemed the tears I cried over not being able to be at church with our Luther family in those months we were home bound. 

And when I kissed her goodbye today, it was with a full heart, and not even the smallest tear threatened the beauty of that sun filled departure.  I merely turned and moved forward knowing that even though I am not by her side, she is NEVER alone in any fire she faces.  She has not been alone yet.  She doesn’t smell like smoke.  She is radiant. And at the end of the day the Stick Together Stewarts are experiencing goodness in the land of the LIVING that we couldn’t even imagine before March 31^st, 2017.  God, I adore You.  Thank you for never leaving us.  Thank You for being faithful, even in the fire.

Lyrics:  Another in the Fire by Chris Davenport and Joel Houston

There's a grace when the heart is under fire

Another way when the walls are closing in

And when I look at the space between

Where I used to be and this reckoning

I know I will never be alone

There was another in the fire

Standing next to me

There was another in the waters

Holding back the seas

And should I ever need reminding

Of how I've been set free

There is a cross that bears the burden

Where another died for me

There is another in the fire….

And I can see the light in the darkness

As the darkness bows to Him

I can hear the roar in the heavens

As the space between wears thin

I can feel the ground shake beneath us

As the prison walls cave in

Nothing stands between us

Nothing stands between us

There is no other name but the name that is Jesus

He who was and still is, and will be through it all

So come what may in the space between

All the things unseen and this reckoning

And I know I will never be alone

And I know I will never be alone