Empowered Through Pain

It's been an interesting 14 months for the Bierenga family.  I've alluded to some of our family's journey here and here and again here.  I have wrestled over the last year with how much to write, whether to write, and what to really say.  In the end, I still haven't written.  I know I will, because that's what I do.  But I still need a little more space to really climb into it.

At the same time, something settled in my brain on Monday that I have to share.  Then it will feel real, and public, and permanent (remember, that's true about the internet).

Monday dawned dark and early, and I was in a bed at my parents' house.  My parents were on their way out the door.  I needed to shower so my sister and I could join them in a curtained room in the surgical prep area of Hackley Hospital in Muskegon.  The morning was freezing cold, and we shivered our way to the hospital before the sun was even considering breaking the horizon.  We found my parents in the last "room" on our left.  Dad was lying in the bed, and Mom was sitting on a chair next to him.  We spent our time there together, just the four of us, for the first time in years really, now that Sara and I are married and have five kids between us.  We were together while the nurse prepped Dad, while the anesthesiologist talked with him, while Sara prayed for Dad and the surgeons and the cancer to go away, while the surgeon checked in with him, while the surgeon prayed for the surgery team, while I read a sad note from a friend whose battle with cancer is nearing its final days, while we laughed and took pictures and read comments from friends who are praying.

And then it was time for the team to walk him to the Operating Room.  Nearly eight years ago, my dad left for Iraq.  That goodbye was hard.  That goodbye was for 400 days and thousands of miles and time zones and bombs and war.  That was the hardest goodbye I've ever had with my dad.  This one nestled right up against it.  So much was riding on that bed.  My daddy was riding on that bed.  And how do you kiss him goodbye hoping and uncertain and wishing and dreaming and desperately loving?  We did it.

While we were waiting in the Family Waiting Area (while "The 700 Club" played on TV, so that wasn't super helpful), we all tried to occupy ourselves.  Sara worked on a training for work.  Mom read Facebook and played Candy Crush and Words with Friends.  I read a book for the Baker Bloggers Program.  And while I was reading, while the surgeons were collecting samples of my dad's insides for biopsy, while hundreds of people around the country were praying, while we were trying to distract ourselves, it hit me.

I was reading the section entitled "Experiencing God's Presence in Suffering, Loss, and Pain."  Kevin Harney wrote:

Suffering is suffering.  It is ours as we walk through it.  It invariably leads to tears, sorrow, heartache, and struggle.  It usually comes unannounced and we rarely know when it will leave.
Most of all, suffering can crush our faith or strengthen it.  The decision is ours.  Will I cling to Jesus through my pain and with tears streaming down my face?  Or will I turn my back and walk away from the only One who can carry me through?  Will I curse God or bless his name even if my teeth are clenched in agony as I worship?  Will I let the presence and power of God fill me to overflowing when I have nothing left to give, or will I seek to make it through in my own strength?
Powerful people seek to face suffering by relying on their own reserve of strength and tenacity.
The powerless throw in the towel as soon as the winds shift, long before the roof comes crashing down.
But the empowered hold the hand of Jesus and let his strength and presence carry them through the tempest of suffering, loss, and pain.  The empowered know that they can't weather the storms life will bring, but that the Maker of heaven and earth can place them under his wings and shelter them no matter what comes their way.

I read that, and then I looked up at my mom and my big sister, and I said, "I'm empowered.  And I'm empowered because we're empowered.  That's what you and Dad taught us."  And it's true.

Our faith isn't perfect.  My grandparents made their mistakes, but they instilled in my mom a faith that is her own.  And through their own struggles and journeys and heartaches my parents have given me a faith in the Maker of heaven and earth and His shelter and peace.

Just over 19 years ago, I left home.  I moved to a secular college because I wanted to forget my parents' faith and find my own.  During that time I made mistakes, and I said and did some hurtful things in my "enlightenment."  But I worked hard to build my faith.  And now there I was.  Sitting in a nondescript and uncomfortable waiting room while my dad underwent cancer surgery, and I realized that the faith I have is now my own, but it's also my parents'.   I'm empowered by the presence of God in the midst of my pain and suffering.  But every single day of the journey we have walked since November 2013 I have seen the same empowering written in my parents' words.  It's been in their strength, in their hope, in their peace, in their prayers.  That didn't change when Zack died.  It didn't change when my dad was pushed into retirement.  It didn't change when our house was broken into.  It didn't change when Dad was told he had cancer.  It didn't change while we waited in that room together.  It didn't change today when we were told that my dad's lymph nodes and all margins of his prostate are clear of cancer.  And I know without a doubt that it wouldn't have changed if we had been told his body was riddled with the disease.

Harney goes on to talk about being "propelled onward by the call and mission of God."  He says that our journey of faith is not really any different than Abraham's when he was still called Abram and he followed an unknown God from the land of his family into a new land where God would build His kingdom.  "Who follows God like this?" Harney writes.  "Abraham and Sarah.  Peter and Andrew.  You and me.  We hear his call.  He leads us on a mission day-by-day and moment-by-moment.  We go, not knowing where it will lead us but trusting the God who calls us to follow him."

And we do.  The journey might lead us through betrayal.  It might lead us through the valley of the shadow of death.  It might lead us through cancer or job loss or the breakdown of a family.  But through all of that, the good and the bad, through the pain and the joy, we live with a tenacious faith that knows "God can see the end of the road even when [we] can't."

Thanks, Mom and Dad.  Thanks for lending me your faith when I was a little girl.  Thanks for letting me go off and try to build my own faith.  And thanks for letting me find a faith that was yours all along.

Overexposed

This is me.  Baring my soul.  It's easier to do when I'm sitting at Starbucks and you're wherever you are, and I don't need to look at you.

For a while now I have been thinking about writing this.  Many of my friends have heard me share bits and pieces, and they take it with varying degrees of acceptance, humor, and belief.  I love them anyway.  Because it's weird.  Like face blindness and other random mental disorders diseases conditions, a lot of people don't think I'm telling the truth or think it's just an excuse or something everyone lives with. 

Here's my reality: It hurts to cut my toenails.  I can't wear nylons.  When headlights shine in my eyes when I'm driving at night, I want to hit something.  I don't like the taste of the candy coating on brown M&Ms.  When my kids are poking me and people are whispering and the overhead light is flickering and someone behind me is tapping his foot and my necklace is laying wrong on my neck, I feel like someone is inside me clawing to get out.  I have a sensory processing disorder.

Most of my life was spent in the dark about it.  I thought I was just sensitive.  My parents thought I was just being dramatic.  People saw me and thought I was fine, but I knew that I wanted to run and hide.  Or hit someone.  Or throw up.  Or just sit down and cry.

Several years ago, my husband bought a book for me.  It is called Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight.  He bought it for me because he loves me and because he thought it sounded exactly like me.  I read it.  And I cried.  For the first time, I discovered that it was real, that I was real.  That I could trust what I was feeling.  And I learned that while I couldn't cure it, I could cope with it.  And I could tell people about it.

I've spent the last several years doing that.  Telling people.  Often it's in an apologetic way: "I'm sorry, but I can't eat that--it's too spicy for me."  Sometimes it's in a defensive way: "Well, it's spicy to me."  Other times it's in a pleading way: "Please.  I'm overwhelmed right now.  I need a break."  For the most part, people are kind, and usually they want to learn more about it or say that maybe that's the same thing their nephew has.  Some people even want to know how they can help.  But there are others (of course there are) who say, "Yeah--those things bother me too.  I just shut them out."  or "Well, if you try hard enough you can get over it." or even "Right.  You just always need things to be your way." 

Listen, that's hurtful.  I didn't choose to be this way, and I promise you that I would change it if I could.  I wish I could eat spicy things or onions.  It would make me feel like less of a problem.  I wish I could sit in a hot tub.  I wouldn't miss out on the fun or wreck other people's plans for the evening.  I wish I could "tune out" the nylons or the necklace or the pretty sweater.  I would be able to wear the latest fashions then.  I wish I could be around my kids when they're "just being kids" and not feel overwhelmed.  I would feel like a better mother.

At the same time, there are things about it that I would never give up.  Did you know that Asiago Cheese Bread from D&W has so much flavor that it doesn't need butter or anything else?  Do you know that the red M&Ms are actually a bit sweeter than any of the other colors?  Do you recognize the smell of snow on the air days before it falls?  Can you smell spring when the first thaw begins?  Are you able to picture exactly where you set something down or the song that was playing the last time you were in this spot?  Can you (almost always) notice when someone gets a haircut or new glasses? 

When people ask me what it's like to have a sensory processing disorder, I never know what to say.  I never know how to compare my response to a "normal" response, because I've never had a normal response.  Everyone has days when they're overwhelmed, and Disney World puts everyone over the edge at some point in their stay.  All I've ever known to say is that it's real, I have it, and I need a break. 

Then I read The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan.  Without knowing it, she gave me the words to explain--to myself and to the people around me--exactly what a sensory processing disorder does.  On page 64, Grace Winter is recalling the Empress Alexandra and the passengers she met aboard.  She writes about memory and refers to a scientific explanation for why memory is faulty.  Then she suggests that "sometimes . . . the failure to remember is not so much a pathological tendency as a natural consequence of necessity, for at any one moment there are hundreds of things that could take a person's attention, but room for the senses to notice and process only one or two."

Ah.  There you have it.  That is normal.  The senses notice and process only one or two of the things happening around them.  But, in my "abnormal" brain, my disordered sensory processing system notices all of the hundreds and tries to process all of them at once.  Then I have to shut down or explode or melt down. 

It's real.  And lately I've been overstimulated 99% of the time.  Today I'm wearing my lightest necklace, and I still feel a bit panicky.  My skin itches and my shoes feel like they're cutting off my circulation.  Something burned in the kitchen at Starbucks and the coffee has been sitting in the carafe for too long.  The guy next to me is wearing a cologne that doesn't suit me, and there's a drip in the sink.  It would be helpful if they turned the music down and if the girls at the table over there stopped their chatting.  The bathroom door needs to be oiled, and I wish the only open seat when I arrived didn't have windows on both sides of it.  Oh, and to top it all off, the people waiting in line are kissing.  Loudly.  I'll manage--one of the open tabs on my browser will give instructions for a friend and me to make a weighted blanket to help me center again, and I found really great perfume that seems to get me back to zero--but it's a daily battle. 

I nearly called this post "Living in This 'Too Loud Too Bright Too Fast Too Tight' World," but in the end I chose something even more appropriate.  Overexposed--that's how my nerve endings and my brain feel every day.  And that's especially how I feel now that I've shared all of this.  I'm telling you it's hard to be a mom with a sensory processing disorder.  It's hard when I recognize it in my middle daughter and when our responses clash.  But I'm learning to cope.  And I'm learning to share it with others just like I would tell them if I couldn't hear well and needed them to speak up.  There's no cure for what I have, but if you'll be patient with me and if you'll believe me when I share my heart and if you'll ask me before you hug me, then maybe we'll both discover that there are so many wonderful things that my disordered brain can offer.

A Love Story

Once upon a time a boy and a girl grew up, in separate towns, with different families.  After he graduated from high school, the boy made his way to the middle of the mitten to begin the rest of his life.  Two years later, the girl also left her home and her family to settle into a new town, make new friends, and (eventually) marry her high school sweetheart.

Because life doesn't always work they way it's planned, the girl's relationship ended.  Three months later, the boy accepted God as his Savior and began attending a Christian fellowship group.  There, the boy and the girl met.  One day, the boy and the girl were assigned to call each other with a reminder about their volunteer work for the group.  The boy made the girl laugh.  But that wasn't love.

The boy and the girl became fast friends, and they discovered that God wanted them to get married.  So, fourteen years ago today, they did just that.  They danced to "Shameless," and they were in love.  But that wasn't love.

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death should separate you and me.  Ruth 1:16-17

Even though they had a beautiful wedding and made wonderful vows to each other, and even though their friends all wished them happily ever after, things went differently.  Three years after they married, the boy and the girl realized that they didn't want to be married to each other anymore.  They decided to separate.  While they were apart, they discovered that God truly had other plans for them and their marriage.  So they fought.  Instead of fighting with each other, they fought next to each other, for each other.  And that was love.

I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.  Joel 2:25

Over the years, they have settled into a deep friendship and into their lives together.  There are now three beautiful girls and one child in heaven.  A household of two has become a household of five.  They haven't always been happy, but they have always been committed . . . to each other, to God, to their family.  And that was love.

It's hard to know--or even imagine--what life could hold next for the boy and the girl.  They have their plans and their dreams, but they don't know.  Today they are in love, and they are best friends.  God has helped them go and stay together.  One day death will separate them.  But until then, God truly has repaid them for the years of their marriage that the locust stole, and He has given them love.

And we're dancing in the minefields
We're sailing in the storm
This is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that's what the promise is for

So when I lose my way, find me
When I loose love's chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith, till the end of all my days
When I forget my name, remind me

'Cause we bear the light of the Son of Man
So there's nothing left to fear
So I'll walk with you in the shadowlands
Till the shadows disappear

'Cause he promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos, baby,
I can dance with you

"Dancing In the Minefields," Andrew Peterson

Beau, I love you.  I'd happily be the girl who went to Central and met you and married you and fought with you and fought for you and fought next to you and birthed our beautiful children and worked with you to raise them and spent fourteen years (so far) dancing through the minefields with you.  Because He promised not to leave us, and His promises are true.  So I'll walk with you in the shadowlands 'till the shadows disappear.  530

Growing Up

When you read about lifestyle changes, you generally read that you should start small.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  So you aren't supposed to try to do everything at once, but you should break it down into more manageable goals.

I didn't do that this year. 

The other day as I was working out, my workout buddy and I were chatting about our common goal to get healthier this year.  I explained to her that I felt like I needed to do it all at once because I've tried it piece by piece before, and I never make it.  I don't know if I get bored or feel like it's not making a difference or if I just get distracted.  Whatever it is, it never works.  So this year I decided to go for broke.  Put all my proverbial eggs in one basket.  Go big or go home.  Go all in.  (I have more cliches if you need them.)

Some mornings it feels crazy, but at the end of the day it always feels accomplished.  As I was reading my Bible this morning, it felt like something more.  It felt like growing up.

In a word, what I'm saying is Grow up.  You're kingdom subjects.  Now live like it.  Live out your God-created identity.  Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.                                                                             Matthew 5:48, The Message

So, yeah.  I'm trying to eat the whole elephant in one bite.  I know that some morning it's going to feel more than crazy.  It's going to feel overwhelming.  But I also know that it's time I grow up.  God gave me the spirit of self-discipline.  Now I just need to live like it.  Live my God-created identity.  Be who I am.  So let's get to it.