The paradox that ran my life

(so not) wordless wednesday

yourtentismadeofpaper — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:19:15 +0000

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage” [Lao Tzu]

Heaven & heart-strings

yourtentismadeofpaper — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:20:18 +0000

Today I turned twenty-five.

“It’s necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.” [Alexandre Dumas; The Count of Monte Cristo]

I am living a life I never thought I’d see; a life I wasn’t even certain I wanted. But God. The only two words I think I’ll ever need. But God…what else is there to say? He is so faithful. & He is good. He is good, all the time. & they sound like cliches, but they saved a life. My life. & I’m truly lost for words.

My (failing) heart has never felt so full. So this is what hearts are for, I remind myself. For loving. Not breaking. & doctors will tell you it isn’t possible, but I was loved back to life. They’ll tell you it was medication or ECT, transfusions or that my neurotransmitters blah blah blah. But it was love that saved me. Love & the ceaseless prayers of the most incredible women I know. I don’t have words for this, either.

I really am the luckiest girl in the world. To my friends reading this: thank you. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for believing in me, & for me. Thank you for having faith when I’d misplaced mine, for having hope when I had none. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for teaching me what hearts were made for. Thank you for petitioning heaven for my miracle. Thank you for sticking around even after the crisis is over. Thank you for literally loving me back to life.

Today I turned twenty-five.

(nearly) wordless wednesdays

yourtentismadeofpaper — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:07:04 +0000

Shadows & shape-shifters

yourtentismadeofpaper — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 07:28:09 +0000

God’s fixed purpose is not the destruction but instruction of his people. Wisdom hangs up the thermometer at the furnace mouth, and regulates the heat. The God of providence has limited the time, manner, intensity, repetition and effect of all our sicknesses; each throb is decreed, each sleepless hour predestined, each relapse ordained, each depression of spirit foreknown, and each sanctifying result eternally purposed. Nothing great or small escapes the ordaining hand of Him who numbers the hairs of our head. The limit is wisely adjusted to our strength, to the end designed, and to the grace apportioned. We cannot suffer too much nor be relieved too late. The limit is tenderly appointed. He who has fixed the bounds of our habitation, has also fixed the bounds of our tribulation. Charles Spurgeon

The God of providence.

Boy, is He the God of providence.

This week I turn twenty-five.

Rest & restoration

yourtentismadeofpaper — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 09:27:13 +0000

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” [C.S Lewis - Mere Christianity]

wordless wednesdays

yourtentismadeofpaper — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 06:49:18 +0000

Almosts & not yets

yourtentismadeofpaper — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:03:52 +0000

I promised myself I wouldn’t leave it so long again, but it’s been at least six months since I last posted; words, anyway. & it’s strange, because it’s not that I have nothing to say. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. I have everything to say. The problem lies with the how. Sometimes I don’t know where to start. Sometimes I’m scared of starting, because I don’t know where it will end. I used to be afraid of endings. I used to be afraid of beginnings. Heck, I used to be afraid of everything. But now? Now there’s not a lot that scares me. I have this sick, sad tendency towards comparisons that no-one should ever have to make. But you work with what you have, even when it breaks your heart. It’s the only way.

I still don’t know where to begin. I don’t know the order of things, or how to make them their right size. Mostly I wander my life at the moment all stuck in my head, or stumbling around the place trying not to collapse under the weight of my heart. Neither of those are bad things; just sayin’. Friends say I’m disappearing…I’m quieter, lonelier, more distant. & maybe they’re right, but it’s OK. I’m not unhappy, not always, anyway. I think it just takes time getting used to this. This living thing. Suddenly I’m worrying about the state of my bones or the fact my kidneys are getting worse & not better. I’ve never had to do this before. Before it didn’t matter; I mean, what use is great bone density when you’re dead?

I am happy, don’t get me wrong. I’m a million light years from where I was this time last year, & the miracle of that fact isn’t lost on me. Not for a single second do I forget how blessed I am, how faithful & gracious God is. Last year shattered everything; but it needed to. I know less now than I ever have. & yet the one thing I do know, is enough to cover everything I don’t.

“Delight yourself in the Lord, & He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). Sometimes the despair & the need are so great within me. I wonder how I can even get up under he weight of it all. But I am reminded of the one who made me, the one who knew every wish & longing of my heart before it was even formed, & there is peace. There has to be. Because if I can’t trust God with this, then….? Then nothing. There’s no if. I take comfort in the knowledge that God knows my desperation. He knows my need. He knows the beauty & the anguish of desire. But in His timing, not mine. Oh Lord you know my heart. You know every part of me. It’s so easy to put limits on God. To ponder the impossible & declare it so. But I know there’s not a true desire in my heart that God himself didn’t put there…Oh Lord grant me patience. I want my timing, but I trust yours. I have to.

I don’t know which way is up at the moment. Which, though disconcerting, isn’t necessarily an uncomfortable feeling. I feel like sometimes it’s good to have your foundations rattled; it’s good to see the sun filter in through last nights mascaraed-eyelashes & honestly have no clue who you are. How can you find yourself until you’ve been truly lost? It takes a lot less energy to let go than it ever did holding on. I don’t know much right now, only that He is good. All the time. & I don’t write that as some silly maxim or cliched throw-away; I write it as truth. & it is enough.

wordless wednesdays

yourtentismadeofpaper — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:58:27 +0000

Blessings & broken things

yourtentismadeofpaper — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:02:36 +0000

It’s been over six months since I last wrote in here. You know how some things are just too big for words? You try to scribble them down, but reading them back to yourself they sound feeble. Fragile somehow, when it’s not how you meant them. Which isn’t to say I haven’t been fragile – because I have been, extremely so. But that’s only part of this story. I’m not entirely sure on how to catch wewantedtheirwings up on the past six months, or even if its possible. & yet I want to try. Not all at once, but slowly, bit by bit.

There were blessings in 2010 that I could never have dreamed of. Like He told me many times during those long & painful months, I was being refined, like a fire refines & purifies gold. I know I’ve said this before, & I’m sure it sounds like either a pitiful exaggeration, or a theological impossibility. But, this is truth: I went to hell. Literal hell, where I was surrounded by weeping & the gnashing of teeth. The only part of it I don’t understand, is how Jesus was there with me. Hell, by it’s definition, is a separation from God – & yet He was there. & it broke my heart, because I guess I expected His presence to mean He was coming to rescue me, or at the very least that He would dull the pain. Neither happened. I suffered the full length & depth of hell. But I was not alone. Jesus did not leave my side. He would not take away my pain, but he would not let me suffer it alone. It was His constant presence that I clung to, despite the fact it offered such little relief.

I’m not going to pretend there was necessarily a happy ending. Because there wasn’t. I had never been more broken than I was during 2010. I had never been more hopeless or confused. The only thing I had left was my faith; faith that God is big, that He loves me, & that He will never forsake me. The thing with faith is you can’t test it with intelligence or logic. You can’t overwhelm it with facts or feelings. Faith is above all those things. It is what it is. & so I clung desperately to Jesus, even though nothing in my life or my circumstances showed that He was big, loving, or dependable. I clung to Jesus even though it felt like He’d walked out when I needed Him most, that He’d taken back every single one of His promises that bore my name. Faith was my lifeline, even when it made no sense. My life without faith would have been equal to my experience of hell but without Jesus: unbearable. I truly believe I would have died. I could no more give up my belief in God & His goodness than I could fly to the moon.

You know, I once thought that the proof something existed was in its ability to be put into words. Written or spoken didn’t matter, just that it could be described. But God is showing me that most things – even the most important things – don’t need description. Whereas once I processed via the mind, I am now learning to process via my heart. & yet it’s not the same heart it used to be; that fiery furnace of affliction ensured that too has changed. At times it’s disorienting, the change. But mostly I’m at peace. At peace because I’m no longer in control of my life, at peace because He is. Odd, I know, for a girl with control issues bigger than most small countries, but it’s true. There is so much freedom in surrender.

I’m just grateful I’m alive, grateful I came back, grateful I had enough people standing by me to hold me up even when my legs gave way & my spirit flailed. 2010 has been such an incredible journey & I wouldn’t wish it upon even my worst enemy. But it was the only way. If there was another path to this place, I would have found it. But there wasn’t. This was the only way. I will never be the same person I was twelve months ago, I will never wake up & see the world with the eyes of someone who has not seen hell. But I am learning. & I have such a patient Teacher.

Lullabyes & longing

yourtentismadeofpaper — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 11:16:55 +0000

I hear her name in the stifled sounds of traffic. I hear it in the shower, as I sleep, in the quiet rustle of linen as I bring the laundry in. It’s in the boil of the kettle, the soft thud of drawers closing. A blink; a shadow. Two short syllables & I’m suffocated by an agonising pain in my stomach & one that surrounds my heart. Dieing would hurt less than this. I whisper her name to myself, over & over, until the pain subsides. Her name: a wish. A hope. A song. I look down & my arms are empty. I can see that even through the tears.

There was so much blood. High pitched machines beeped a fast-paced staccato. Monitors covered my torso & my stomach, my limbs were pierced with large bore needles. I remember watching as my pressure dropped. 120 systolic, 90, 80, 65, 55 on nothing; “She needs another four units, stat!” One kind nurse held my hand the entire time. Later she switched to holding my face between her palms. A doctor kept trying to have me consent to a procedure. This nurse screamed at him. “She is in no state to do this, Vincent!” she screeched, before looking back at me tenderly. She was gentle but fierce, a lioness with her cub. “You stay with me, do you hear? Stay with me, open your eyes, don’t you dare give up now.” I lost consciousness several times. But in the end I lost far more than that.

The night went on forever. I was injected with drugs that made me violently ill, burned my veins & made my heart freeze. I was hollowed out. The anaesthesia didn’t work & I was conscious for the entire procedure, unable to move or speak. I remember the scraping sensation, the suction, & I remember praying. I remember the gut wrenching realisation that I was completely & utterly alone. Laying in the middle of a cold, sterile operating theatre, I questioned God. Where was He now? Why did He give, & then so quickly take away? I never did find the answer to either of those questions. Days later I remember refusing a wheelchair to take me to the bathroom, but then falling into it as my legs gave way & my stomach cramped. I didn’t speak for weeks. I couldn’t. I had been hollowed out, now nothing but an empty shell.

That was three years ago, to the month. I still feel empty without her. Dead. As time passes it gets harder rather than easier. I feel her absence more deeply, I think about her every second of every minute of every day. Those two, beautiful syllables: Ava.