wearelivingamiracle

Wonderland

| brookema
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We did it. We took a vacation. In a post-crisis reality, this is a big deal. You better believe there was some big celebration of what before was taken for granted. Because post-crisis, there are a lot of things you say goodbye to. Some forever, like naivety. Some for a short while, like vacationing. And because of Hank, this much-hoped-for vacation was not green-lighted until the day before we actually left. And oh my goodness, for those who didn’t see the update ala Facebook and Instagram, Hank is a wuss and NOT a cancerous tumor!

So as we come up on the six-month mark after Jason’s heart attack, we jumped a flight to Alaska and joined up with besties to explore Wonderland. It delivered. We rested. We played. We danced in the rain and shine. And I only had 2-1/2 panic attacks.

But seriously, what a wonder-full world. And even on the rainy days, we carried the sunshine in our pockets.

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His name is Hank.

| brookema
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There’s a new threat in town. His name is Hank. We don’t know much about him yet, except that he’s most unwelcome and potentially the culprit behind Jason’s mysterious clotting. Maybe even behind the heart attack itself.

Hank is a mass snuggled up against Jason’s kidney and abdomen. He was discovered yesterday when, on a loooooooong shot, one of our amazing ‘ologists ordered CT scans to rule out a rare syndrome where tumors can be associated with clotting. He didn’t expect the scans to find anything. They did. They found Hank.

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Hank is between the size of a golf ball and a baseball. He is not jagged, but appears to have a rim, and hard to say yet whether he is solid or liquid. So the next step is an MRI, and then a meeting with an Oncological Surgeon. Yep, all those words strike fear to my heart, even though at the moment we are in the limbo land of “maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that”, and at least some of the maybes are not dire. But some are. And sympathy is a terrifying thing to see on a Doctor’s face.

And miracles are allowed to be scared.

So we want to ring the bell without sounding the alarm. Because fear is not the boss of us. We’ve seen the power of prayer and know the greatest Physician of all, the ultimate Head of Household who can evict Hank with a single vote (that one’s for you, Jared!). I’d love it if we showed up next week and they couldn’t even find Hank.

In the meantime, we are amen-ing the heck out of the long road.

Med Bracelet

 

Also, someone stole Jason’s computer. So there’s that. And without further proof, I’m blaming Hank.

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Hope Heals: Redefine healing. Manifest hope. Live your miracle.

| brookema
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Jay and Katherine Wolf are living a miracle and telling their story of ‘Hope Heals’. In mid-February I signed up to read their book as part of a launch team and help share their story. Just days later, we were living it. In fact, I emailed them from our ICU room before Jason woke up, asking for the book to be delivered STAT.

It arrived the day after we got home from the hospital. Complete with a personal note from Jay and Katherine.


We read it as sleep healed, and quiet healed, and yes hope healed.


Written from the proximity of loss, reading this book felt like kneeling beside Katherine and Jay inside the holy of holies, daring to voice both lament and praise. We’ve practiced this voice before. In fact, just before picking up this book, my J said: “I’m thankful; but damn, this hurts.” We know we’re ‘allowed’ to think that way, but it’s still a hard line of truth for a miracle to speak. And then it was echoed when we read this from Katherine’s pen: “I can give God the glory, and it can still hurt.” (p.16) It was like meeting friends who spoke the same language to the same God: the God who can take it. And the God who meets us in it.

And true to Katherine’s words, this book brought both glory and hurt. Glory in hearing another story redeemed by our amazing God in the midst of loss; hurt in facing the exquisite ways that Jay Wolf describes his time in the ER, the hospital room, and their amen to the long road. There were many days that my Jason would ask me to stop reading, sometimes even just a paragraph or two in for the day, because it was just too painful to hear what “the awake spouse” experienced.

I would pause, close the book, and silently agree that Jay and I had walked a parallel heart-path as we said goodbye to our spouses and hello to our fears, wondering if we would “no longer be a casual observer of the pain but the recipient.” He speaks of the sound of silence being broken by the sound of his own wailing (p. 26), and I too remembered how hearing my own wail was at once foreign and familiar. Something that was coming from inside me, yet as if from a distance too.

Jay speaks of his rush to the ER desk and the nurse there using a tone reminding him that it was his crisis, not everyone else’s. And I could see in my minds’ eye the nurses that wouldn’t make eye contact with me when I arrived to the ER and was ushered into a private waiting room. They didn’t need my break-down to interrupt everyone else’s waiting.

But slowly, day by day, we would read a little more. And then close the pages of their story and discuss the pages of our own. This book was like an elbow-to-the-side from a friend, saying “hey, talk about this part … yes, that part too. Don’t skip it.”

There were moments in Katherine’s pages when I would see Jason nod, or sigh, or close his eyes in recognition of a moment of ICU despair. Of walking a sacred road that included being asleep for the most dramatic moments. (Confession: we did scan over some of the details of the physical healing, as that section got long, but this story is powerful enough that even scanning over it is impactful.)

Jay speaks of the day “I released Katherine from my feeble grip and into God’s. I knew that, though Katherine may well lose her life, she would never lose the indomitable goodness and inexplicable love of God. And neither would I.” THIS is the healing of which they speak. The healing this book offers goes far beyond the physical, and dares us all to think of how “we all walk through this life on the edge of a blade, and yet we rarely allow ourselves to feel the weight of our potential losses or the grace of our potential gains.” (p. 66)

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*Released TODAY; go grab a copy and dare to meet Jay and Katherine in the pages of this book. Dare to go even further and feel the elbow-nudge as their story unlocks your own … 

 

 

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All I asked for was a ride to the Hospital

| brookema
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It’s Friday number eight. I told you I’d be counting for awhile.

  And LIFE is here, you guys. We are in it. We have a new filter, a new way to make decisions and priorities but we are back in the zone where we need … well, filters and decisions and priorities. And sometimes it’s real tricky. And coming at us real fast.

Eight Fridays ago feels like a lifetime removed from our here and now, but also like a constant timer going off in the background. In the here and now, we are laughing and holding hands and rolling our eyes at the same drama and launching dreams like books and businesses (turns out the Entrepreneur-apple didn’t fall far from the tree) and turning our prayers to other emergencies and hurts.

But also, it’s only been eight Fridays since our emergency. Jason still wears a life vest. We have learned what a false alarm on that thing sounds like (hint: terror. It sounds like terror.) We own a sexy old-man-pill-box. And Cardiac Rehab is a part of our new rythym.

It’s still. So. Surreal.

Eight Fridays ago I called one of my best friends and in a tremor-filled-voice asked if she would drive me to the hospital.

That’s the last thing I asked for.

I didn’t ask anyone else to come to the hospital. They came.

   

   
I didn’t ask anyone to bring me food. They held apples up to my face and told me when to bite.

I didn’t ask anyone to smuggle cots into the waiting room. They found a way.

I didn’t ask anyone to replace my silly heels. They brought Uggs and it felt like stepping into a hug. That I wore for four days straight. So ummm, they didn’t want them back.

I didn’t ask anyone to start a dinner plan. But every night on the courtyard patio there was the breaking of bread and more being nourished than just our bodies.

   

 I carried around a box full of hotel toiletries like it was a prized baby doll, you guys.

Because love looked so PRACTICAL in that space. Love showed up in every single hug. And prayer. And song. And baby snuggle. And card. And candy bar. And yes, hotel toiletry.

   
   
It was a collision of selflessness that turned into a beautiful symphony. I’ll never be the same because of it. And it hasn’t stopped – people are still giving us LIFE in countless ways. Turns out meal trains are the bomb, by the way. And turns out we have some amazing cooks in our tribe.

I’ve always taken Jesus’ words to heart when He said it’s more blessed to give than receive. And I get what He was saying. But I gotta say the blessing of receiving over these last eight Fridays has blown my socks off too. It’s powerful to see what life together can look like. I’m starting to think that life together is one of the most sacred things we have.

Tonight we are sharing at Choose Joy – and yes, saying WE still makes me giddy, I’m guessing that will continue much longer than the counting of Fridays will. Choose Joy is a conference-that-feels-more-like-family and this is our third year here. It’s targeted to couples going through infertility and/or adoption, but you know what it’s really targeted at? Alone-ness. Fear. Lies that you’re the only one. See, some crises are far more private and invisible than a heart attack. And rarely does someone pick up the phone and ask for anything when their heart is being attacked in a way that can be hidden. It’s tricky learning how to share it. But dang am I amazed every year at the power of going from “1-in__________” to “1-of-a___________”.

Sometimes you don’t realize who your tribe is until you need them. Jason was once told that he “counted by ones” – to be honest, it was said as a negative, though in taking that phrase home we decided we always wanted to count that way, and never give into the ministry-pressure to start counting success by any number higher than one. That decision felt costly at the time. But as I sat in that waiting room and looked around me, you know what I was doing? Counting by ones … all the ones had gathered in that room together. Our Pastor looked over at me at one point and said, “this is a good return on your investment.” He could not have been more right.

So you guys, count by ones. Invest in your people. Take the risk of showing up. Because all I asked for eight Fridays ago was a ride to the hospital. Our people carried us from there …

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News that makes you RUN

| brookema
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Let’s be honest, I’ll never see Easter the same way again. The story that has been familiar to me since I was five is ALIVE in new ways.

As I sat in that waiting room five short Saturdays ago, my mind was churning on all the words that had been delivered to me. Like heart attack and life support and it’s time to say goodbye. My mind kept sticking like a scratch on an old record on the word “widow.”

When the doctors and both attending nurses walked into that waiting room, I stood, expecting to hear the pronouncement, the time of death, the confirmation of this new title I never wanted. I mean, I’ve watched Grey’s Anatomy, I know what happens when the attending physician comes in with backup.

Instead, the doctor’s eyes and mouth got wide at the same time as he said “I can’t explain it, but he’s awake, you should go see him!” One of the nurses then grabbed my hand and raced me down the hallway. She was practically skipping, proclaiming over and over again that she’d never seen anything like this, that it was a miracle. My steps were a little more stumbley and heavy, as my mind and heart tried to catch up.

And there he was. ALIVE! And mad – oh my gosh so blessedly mad at the tubes and so scared by the noises. His eyes were just as wide as before, but instead of blank orbs there was LIFE fighting to see and be seen. He was in way too much danger for anything more than a few minutes of sloppy kisses on his forehead and words to calm him and tell him he was so loved.

I went back to the waiting room to tell everyone it was true: He IS alive! A friend raced in moments later – I will never forget the sound of his flip-flops as they raced down the hall and into the waiting room, not pausing to round the corners, coming at full speed to my side, where both of our messy tears and words rambled through a series of “I heard he was gone? But that now he’s alive?” and “yes!” and “what!?” and “how can this be?” and “what does this mean?”

I imagine a very similar scene in “that other” sacred waiting room – the Upper Room where the disciples waited from Saturday to Sunday morning. Like me, Peter was trying to wrap his head and heart around watching his best friend as he was dying. Like me, they were preparing for a burial. I mean, you guys, the women went to the tomb to prepare the body for burial, not to check for resurrection.

And the women came and Peter probably stood. Or maybe he only half looked up. Because either way, he already knew what they were there to say. They came to pronounce that they had prepared the body.

Except they hadn’t.

Because his body wasn’t there.

Because he was IS alive.

And Peter ran. His feet flew to the tomb when he heard the words that Jesus was ALIVE … I don’t know whether he ran in confidence or confusion or with skipping feet or stumbling feet. But when I read of Saint Peter’s footsteps as he ran to the tomb, I will forever hear an echo of my own as I ran-stumbled down an ICU hallway. And I’ll hear those flip flops, too.

Because “He is alive!” is news that makes you run.

So I hope you run today. To the empty tomb. To life. To Jesus. Whether you have seen His new life with your own eyes or heard a report and are still figuring out what it means, whether you’re in ugg-boots or flip-flops, whether you’re running with confidence or stumbling along as someone else holds your hand. Run. Run to the news that HE IS ALIVE.

Because you guys, He is.

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The Day I was the Best Girlfriend Ever

| brookema
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And TODAY is the four-week anniversary of Jason WAKING UP against all odds.

Also, ALSO, it’s our twelve year engaged-a-versary … warranting a fun re-post …..

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Ten  TWELVE years ago today, I was the Best Girlfriend Ever.

Really, it’s true.  I said so.  Out loud.  To my mom.

See, I’d just come out of a traumatic relationship.  Not a romantic one.  A work one.  On March 18, 2004, I walked away from my job.  Another thing to cross off of my Brave Things I’ve Done list.

So come March 19, 2004, I woke up feeling like a new woman, enjoying her first Day Off in a long time.  I was excited to do whatever I wanted and answer to absolutely nobody.

Then Boyfriend called.  Would I drive out to see him in Riverside?  To watch basketball – it being the middle of March Madness and all.  Could I, would I, be the one to drive to him for a change?  Sigh.  Yes.  Yes I will, because I love you and I’m your Girlfriend and I have a Day Off and blah blah blah.

So, being the Best Girlfriend Ever, I readjusted my day, told my To Do List to wait, turned off Daytime TV, and called my mom to tell her how amazing I was.  How I was so flexible and selfless and was earning girlfriend gold stars and what-not.  How she didn’t snicker at me, I’ll never know.  Mom-powers are amazing and mysterious.

When I got to Boyfriend’s house, he came out to greet me and suggested a brief walk around campus (where he worked, not went to school – no robbing the cradle here).  He then casually suggested we take a drive up to Big Bear, my hometown in the mountains, an hour-ish away.  We’ve never before nor never since “just decided to take a drive to Big Bear.”  It’s always a planned thing.  But I was turning over a new leaf.  Flexibility.  And also, think of my alternative:  watching basketball.  Sure, why not? I said, only briefly reminding him that it was the middle of March Madness.  More girlfriend-gold-stars after all.  If texting had been a thing back then, my mom would have been getting a play-by-play oh my awesome-ness.

With each mile we drove up the mountain, I repeatedly thought this is so weird that we’re just taking a random trip to Big Bear.  But instead of thinking – even ONCE – about it in a suspicious manner, it only furthered my own sense of girlfriend-greatness.

A handful of hours after I graciously swept my day aside in favor of time with my Beau, we pulled into a parking lot near the lake “to take a walk.”  Still not suspicious.  Seriously?  Seriously.

Until I saw the candles.  Forming a path to the lakeshore.

And heard Boyfriend’s breathing change.

I caught my own breath as I realized this was IT.

He led me down the candle-lit path pre-set by his little engagement elves, back down to the lakeshore where years before he had turned me away, making today the day he’d reclaim that territory and ask me to say yes to forever.

Years before, I had prayed just one prayer about the day I might be asked to marry someone.  Please God, just let me KNOW the answer, whether it’s yes or no, I want it to be clear.  No doubt, no hesitation.  I simply couldn’t fathom being stuck somewhere in the middle and answering with an Uhhhh, ummmm, welllll.

And there on that fateful day, a resounding Yes! came out of my mouth as naturally as the air I breathe.

Sometimes Jason will whisper in my ear, Thanks for saying yes, and I always answer back, Thanks for asking.  I’ve never lost sight of just how amazing it is to be asked.

Somewhere in the darkness a ring was slipped on my finger – the same one that rests there today.

A little known-fact is that Boyfriend and I didn’t kiss, not even when Boyfriend became Fiancée.  A fact that shocked even my mother.  I’m pretty sure she said something about owing a guy a kiss if he gives you a diamond ring.  But it’s just something we decided to save for our wedding day.  Not in any holier-than-thou way, but more because we knew our triggers and didn’t need to add another one.  So I got a diamond but Boyfriend-turned-Fiancee didn’t get a kiss.  Yet.

When it all caught up with me, I felt a teeny bit chagrined about the self-applause I’d given myself all day.  Way to go, Brooke, you are sooooo selfless.  You were willing to clear your schedule and be available for a proposal.  Bravo.

When we then made our way to my family’s house for a pre-orchestrated celebration party, my mom’s grin said it all.

Wow, did I really just brag to you all day about what an awesome girlfriend I am?  Yes.

And you knew the whole time that he’d be proposing and not watching basketball?  Yes.

It’s a good thing that I was the Best Girlfriend Ever that day, since it was my last day as a girlfriend.

Engagement Pic

(Also, we were just baaaabies!)

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Watch the heart

| brookema
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It’s hard to believe that my favorite heart stopped beating four Fridays ago. And then started again. And then stopped again. And then, well, for those that have been reading along, you know the ‘and then’.

I know someday will be “just another Friday”, but for now – and the foreseeable future – I’m counting. Today is Friday number FOUR from “that Friday.” Friday and I have always had a thing – but more in the abstract, the idea of Friday as a season, which emerged from the disciple Peter’s experiences on that fateful “Good Friday.” When shock, loss, and mourning collide. When the unreal becomes real. I’ve always said my “first Friday” was going through infertility – our unplanned unparenthood. Heck, even the Bible Study I wrote is called, of all things, ‘Friday’s Rain.’  Walking through my proverbial Friday is how I learned that lament is worship and what it means to praise a GOOD God in the midst of UNGOOD feels and reals.

So it’s not lost on me that “the call” came on a Friday, too. The literal and figurative Fridays colliding in a scene that is still surreal, though the flashbacks hit with shocking realism.

  
This morning I woke up thinking about all that I didn’t know four Fridays ago. ICU-Nurses-turned-friends. Campus-security-officers-turned-heroes. A hospital I didn’t know existed. Medical terms that were previously obscure and irrelevant to me. Doctors I would hug. A naivety and innocence that I didn’t know was naïve and innocent.

But also the depth of community, the power of prayer, and the LIVING nature of Scripture. Just how rich we are in friends. Just how miraculous each breath is. These are all things I knew, but now I KNOW.

This morning my guy decided that it was time to kick me out for a little beach time before I went to therapy – both some of the healthiest things for my soul. When I got down to the water, the clouds were still perfectly thick, keeping everything sleepy and just the right amount of Southern California chilly. But as it generally does, the sun started to fight off the clouds, and as I took in the sun’s warmth, I thought about how the last few weeks have felt just like that … a taking in of the sun as it slowly burns off the clouds. And makes your eyes burn if you stare right at it.

 Direct staring not recommended, but paying attention: highly recommended. Walking the beach, I thought of my hours in the ICU, where I remember wondering if there would be a day that I’d walk the beach again in full contentment. And while I don’t miss the hospital or that ICU room, there’s one thing I do miss. Okay two. Okay three.

First, the definition within its walls. Second, Nurse Nancy. And third, the breakfast burritos.

The second two I can go visit. The first, the definition, may sound like a weird thing to miss- because a hospital is full of UNdefined possibilities, more questions than answers, chaos, and is constantly ON. But one thing a hospital does just right is having a single focus: LIFE. Life has one very specific, distinct, simple meaning in a hospital, especially the cardiac floor. You watch the heart. You watch it’s rythym, it’s beat, it’s pace, it’s consistency. Life inside the hospital walls means one thing. Watch the heart, keep it beating.

Life outside the hospital walls is not so simple. And that’s SO GOOD, and so healthy, and a little tricky. Because life outside the hospital walls includes deadlines and decisions and diets and directions and dog-hair and dust and deep sighs.

And still, watching the heart. Yes the physical – low sodium, cardiac rehab, etc. But also the heart-heart. The soul-part. The one that doesn’t come with a monitor – but oh my gosh can you imagine if it did!? Yikes. Because even when everything changes, you still bring the same self to the table. You’re forever different, but you’re also not.

Watch the heart, for it is deep, and varied. It can take in wonders, and can expand beyond what you thought possible, and ache in unknown places, and echo dazzling light and love. Watch it. Watch your hot-mess heart as it LIVES. I think you’ll be surprised what you find, whether it’s a Friday or “just another Friday.” One sign of LIFE returning this week were the tears and the laughter and then the laughing-tears when a kinda rough conversation led to Jason saying to me, “You know you’re the hot mess that I WANT to do life with, right?” You better believe that I laugh-cried right then and there.

You guys, these hearts of ours. Goodness they are a sacred mystery. They need watching. They have a lot to process and prioritize and participate in. And maybe life outside the hospital walls isn’t all that different from life within: watch the heart, keep it beating.

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We are living a miracle: on time, and life-vests, and all the first week home things

| brookema
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Some people cross the bridge from care-free to care-full slowly, one responsible vitamin at a time. Others get pushed off the bridge and inherit a pillbox and a bunch of ‘ologists overnight.

  
Our first week home has been a crash course in all things care-full – if you’ve ever seen a life vest, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, just think gun holster meets inspector gadget. It’s like wearing a bomb that will SAVE your life instead of end it, and it requires some quick-change action between showers.

Turns out a broken heart takes a long time to heal. There has GOT to be some amazing spiritual and emotional parallels as a physically attacked heart has to go through such intense recovery and rehab. So much I never would have known before, but it really is TIME that is needed most. Time, sleep, and quiet.

Oh the Quiet. No heart monitors. Birds instead of balloon pumps. Heck, even the occasional jet planes overhead have a soothing new rhythm because they remind me we are NOT IN A HOSPITAL.

  
I’ve never enjoyed silence like this. We sit. We read. We rest. We savor. It’s some sacred quiet. Slowly, bit by bit, we talk through all that has just been, and turn our attention to all that will be. (Because there is a will be!!!) 

And slowly, the pace of “normal life” is creeping back in, too. Which is beautiful and also not at the same time. I don’t miss the hospital at all, but I do miss some of the single-focus-clarity that two weeks in a hospital forces, and I’d like to adopt some new filters as we readjust into our new normal.

One thing that’s ever-more-evident is just how different our two experiences are, and therefore our healing journeys will be. We knew that within the first 24 hours of him leaving ICU, of course – his journey involves sleeping through some of the most vibrant, haunting, and sacred hours of my life. His journey involves disorientation and shock on a whole different level. His journey involves wearing a life-vest. His journey went from a basketball court to a hospital bed in a blink of an eye. His journey involves the emotions inherent in heart-attack recovery … everything from “glad to be alive” to “damn this hurts” to “I’m not worth all this attention” to “when can I get back to work/school?”

We’ve decided that miracles are allowed to be grumpy. 

And me, well, I’m still experiencing a layer of grace that I can’t take any credit for. I’m still being held up by a Mighty Right Hand (Psalm 63:8). That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of Deep Feels going on.

The tears – they come at surprising times. As I open a can of chicken. As we play cards. As he chokes on a cough and I feel the pain on his face.

The sighs come when the flashbacks zap me. When images flash in my mind of monitors, wide-open but un-seeing eyes, and the wail that defied words. Some say I was strong. I wasn’t strong. I was simply a girl in love with the guy on the ventilator. Some say I’m strong now. And still, I tell you, it’s love making me breathe “thank you” even as I echo “ouch” as I watch my man – my active, vibrant, strong, athletic, bold MAN – learn how to re-enter life one five-minute-walk at a time.

Hold out for that kind of love, ladies. It’s worth every high and low.

  
The deep thoughts come with classical music, haunting me with the ways it can say what my words and actions can not, just as it soothed both of us while it played in the ICU.

The chills come when I remember that I should be a widow, and I look up to receive comfort from the very man who has instead kept me a bride.
The smiles come when he reaches for my hand. 

The goosebumps when each kiss becomes just a little bit longer.

The laughter when the right pun hits at the right moment, or when Mrs Chanandeler Bong is so much funnier than before. Or when I win at the card game.

Because miracles laugh, and cry, and shudder, and go silent, and get grumpy, and dream of the future. Because miracles get a future – we just enter it slowly.

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