Reflections From the Heart

Author: Sharon Ammons (Page 2 of 3)

Children Present: Fragile Handle With Care

My grandma told a story of my sister finding a robin’s egg as we were walking home from church one spring. They lived in the parsonage near the church. Grandpa passed away when I was 5 so my sister and I (twins) were no more than that. She was so excited with her discovery but too small, or perhaps a better word is inexperienced, to protect it. The little egg was soon smashed by the very hands that sought to help it grow into a beautiful bird.

Our children are in those eggs. Sometimes the things we do, although desiring to protect and help them grow, actually bruise or shatter their shell. Thankfully, unlike the bird, God repairs their shell, but not without consequence. Each time the shell is repaired a scar is left behind. I picture it as a tattoo, of sorts, of the scars on His own hands that resulted from His taking on of our sins. This tattoo serves as a reminder, and better yet teacher, that sin has consequences as does squeezing too tightly.

There is a time in a child’s life that you must let go and let her fly on her own. It starts when she is a baby. God knew we were not capable of letting go all at once. So we release slowly: first to let her walk, then to let her make friends and go places with out us and ultimately to live her own life hopefully rooted in the Scripture and full of desire to follow Him.

As a parent we influence that release but we can not orchestrate it. I can not be all that she needs. I am fallible. If I were perfect, she would have no need for her Saviour.

It is both a freeing and convicting idea. Freeing in the sense that God, in His infinite wisdom that far surpasses my understanding, is ultimately in control. But convicting in that He placed the fragile egg in MY hand and has instructed ME to help it grow, not alone but with His Word as my guide. In order to best protect my child, I need to know what wisdom is contained in that guide. Do I dare walk this path without consulting it? Unfortunately, if I were to answer honestly, it would be “yes” on many occasions.

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Background for the above article:

Today was a particularly tough parenting morning. One child threw a fit, first over her pants then over her sock. Another was extremely slow in preparation. I was slow to get up and therefore running late (which despite all the jokes really is something that makes me crazy).

I finally lost it. We got in the car. One child picked briefly at another. And with one sentence uttered in anger, I squelched every inkling of happy left in that car. We drove the rest of the way in silence. When I dropped them off, one had quiet tears, one said not a word but slipped a small piece of candy in my purse (a peace offering) and the third uttered a softly spoken “I’m sorry mom”. I knew I had done wrong and I sincerely apologized to each individually. The feeling that I was leading them incorrectly sat heavy on my chest.

I often drive to work in silence as it helps me reflect. The image of the bird, the bruised shell and God’s perfect Word as my guide were what I reflected on for the rest of the drive. From thus came the above.

Surviving A Birthday That Is Not Even My Own

The head and the heart always walk the same journey but they do not always share the same experience or arrive at the same conclusion.

Below are two journals from the same journey. One is written from the head and the other from the heart. Do they arrive at the same conclusion? It is much too close for me to discern.

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Written from the head:

I always knew as I aged there would be birthdays I just as soon not see, generally those multiples of 10 that signify aging (hopefully with grace). The birthday I am trying to survive today, however, is not even my own.

Milestones are such a crazy thing. Some of them we look to with anxious anticipation. Others we dread. And still others are met with both dread and anticipation.

Birthdays can be those milestones filled with both dread and anticipation. Consider the 18th birthday. It is often seen with anticipation from the child’s view point. He is looking intently toward future and promise. Somehow 18 makes him ready to conquer the world. That same birthday may be met with dread from the parent who sees a big change on the horizon and a piece of her heart moving farther away.

It is with both anticipation and dread that I look at the coming of this date, John’s earthly birthday so closely followed by his heavenly one.

My kids have been planning for weeks: “Mom, let’s make dad a cake. Can we go out to eat like we used to? We’ll pick some place dad would have loved.” Hailey has told everyone she has seen in the past week that her daddy’s birthday is coming and she is making him a cake.

In one such interaction the other child innocently replied (with no intent to harm), “Your father is dead. Why does he need a birthday cake?”

That child was actually very insightful. The cake is for us not John. In keeping with the scripture and the idea that we are made new upon entering heaven, January 12, no longer carries any meaning for John, just those of us here who miss him. John’s heavenly birthday is now February 17 another date which will soon come to pass for us. Perhaps we should save the cake for then.

So for those who ask the innocent question: “Your father/husband is not here.  Why do you need a cake?” The cake is not for him. It is for us, for my children. A means of remembering, honoring and holding on to that which was once very dear to us.

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Written from the heart:

I tried not to cry today, John. I really did. I wanted to make you proud.  I tried to focus on the memories and this notion that you are celebrating a heavenly birthday, the ultimate prize for a life well lived. I’ve gotten pretty good at tough or numb or whatever you want to call it. It is a survival technique. But by the time I got to work, I was a mess. I couldn’t find a kleenex. (That’s poor planning on my part). I had tears, make-up stains and snot all over my coat and scarf. This day is sad for me. My heart hurts. A day that once was devoted to you, is now magnified without you. I don’t want to have cake or go to dinner. The memories are still mostly painful. Milestones are overwhelming.

I remember when we were facing the inevitable. You were in the recliner and I knelt on the floor next to you with my head on the arm of the chair and cried. Believe it or not, I never cried much before all of this began. But this day I did. You stroked my hair and said, “It’s OK to cry, Sharon. It is a very sad thing.”

I do not know that I can celebrate your birthday without you John Ammons. It will take all I have to help your girls decorate that cake and sit in one of your favorite restaurants. But despite the hurt in my heart, I will. I will go to dinner and I will come home and help the girls decorate the cake. Then we will sing ‘Happy Birthday’. I will do it, not because I feel like it, but because I know it is right and I know that it is important to your girls. At least, maybe, by this evening I’ll be prepared enough to bring kleenex along.

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The head is so much more rational than the heart. I have told my girls on several occasions, the difficulty is often not in teaching your head what is right and wrong. It is in convincing your heart to accept it.

Pursuing a Master’s – Insanity or Just Insanity?

And so it starts, a new journey. My first task as a Master’s student, writing an introductory paragraph about myself, has been completed. Looking at the syllabus it is by far the easiest task assigned. I’m OK with an easy start. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about how I’m going to complete this. In fact, over the past few weeks I have tried desperately to talk myself into withdrawing. But it never seemed right.

God has laid this on my heart and until He changes the desire, I will pursue it. That does not mean He will make it easy. Following God is rarely easy. But He will make it possible.

It isn’t actually the thought of it being possible or not that made me consider withdrawing. It is the question of whether it even makes sense? I am already struggling to meet the demands of full-time employment and single parenting (both of which are still new to me). Adding the burden of course work almost seems insane.

Further, it is illogical, the pursuit of a Master’s in Theology, when you are an accountant with no plans to change careers. New Testament I is not destined to influence my work in the slightest.

Thankfully, God does not often work through what makes sense by my standard. There is example after example in the Bible of Him using insane scenarios to touch lives. Consider just these few:

* Balaam and the talking donkey (Numbers 22:21-31)
* The Israelites Crossing the Red Sea on Dry Ground (Exodus 14:21-22)
* Jesus Feeds 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (Matthew 14:15-21)

Isn’t every miracle, when compared to what makes sense, insane in its own right? So it is with an anxious, yet determined, heart that I take this (insane) next step. Wondering if, how and when God will use it. Ultimately this is what having a peace in knowing God is all about. It is confidence that an action or pursuit is correct despite the accompanied fear and unknown.

If God lays something on your heart that aligns with His word, even though it does not make sense, pursue it. You never know where it might take you.

Finding A Purpose in Writing

I truly enjoy writing. Since John’s death it has been a release for me. I guess it is the overflow of all the words that I once threw John’s direction when he came in from work. Poor man. That’s a lot of words. I’m trying to remember if I let him come in and get settled before casting off a daily allotment of language in his general direction; or if I just started in as he walked through the door. This memory is fuzzy, so, let’s assume the best.

I was driving home from work a few weeks back contemplating whether I should start a blog. I prayed these words (or some variation there of), “God I would love the opportunity to be able to encourage someone with my writing. But, please, God I only want to write if what I write will ultimately encourage and bring people to You.” In my defense, it was a heartfelt prayer and my hope was something useful to come from heartache. But have you ever prayed something or asked something and then had a realization of how completely ridiculous it sounds? It is not that the request is necessarily wrong. It is that it takes the position that I have something to offer God.

All of a sudden I was reminded of the story of Lazarus. Think back to the rich young ruler who was cast into Hell begging God to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers of the truth of Hell. Recall Christ’s words that if they did not believe when Moses and the Prophets told them, why would they believe even if Lazarus returned from the dead to tell them. (Luke 16:19-31)

Is it not a similar scenario? Has God not already provided, in the presence of the Bible, all of the written word needed to encourage and bring others to Himself?

It is a humbling position to realize that God does not need me to encourage others in Him. However, if I am His willing child, He might allow me the opportunity. So it is with a great sense of awareness that I put words on paper and that I tell my story. Awareness that as long as I seek God’s direction first and foremost, He might allow me the chance to spill out something encouraging even if just to one person.

How to Encourage Those Who Hurt

I often get the feeling that folks think telling me depressing stories of others worse off than myself will be encouraging.

“I know a widow woman who has 10 kids, all less than 3 months old. She doesn’t have a degree or any work experience, so she earns money to buy food by knitting Walmart sacks into puppies and selling them on the internet for a fraction of what they are worth. And one of her sons has 3 arms and 6 legs. Imagine the time she has each night teaching him to keep his feet off the dinner table!”

And everyone replies – “Oh My!! Bless her heart!!”

I struggle with finding this encouraging. In fact, I often find it depressing. When you are hurting you already have a heightened sense of all that is bad in the world. All this does is remind me that I have further to fall, more to lose.

To minister to one who is hurting is not to offer great advice or have the right answers. It is to offer a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. It is to let them tell the same story over and over again.

It is to offer the heartfelt probe: “How are you?” which is so often left untouched. It is a question to be asked, however, only if you have time and are in a place to receive an answer. You don’t have to worry about saying something wrong. You see the pressure has been lifted. The hurting do not need advice. They need a friend. In fact, once you pose the question, you likely will not have to talk at all. I cannot promise, though, that you will not have to endure an uncomfortable flow of tears.

And please, my friend, do not give up on them. Sometimes, the masquerade of having it all together is so well played, they are not able to let the charade down; although they may desperately want to if just for a moment.

We are a hurting world and we need each other. God did not stop with the creation of only one individual. He created a nation of individuals by instructing us to multiply. Not because He needed us (although He definitely wanted us), but because we need each other. We can not lose sight of that in the busyness of our individual lives.

Aliens Are Living In My House

Sometimes I look at my children and I see aliens. Who are these beings? What makes them tick? Why is it that sometimes chocolate makes them exceedingly happy and other times it makes them sick to their stomachs? And why, oh why, do they have so much energy? Or perhaps, more importantly, how can I get some of that energy?

I am the older so doesn’t that mean I am the wiser? That’s what my parents used to tell me. Yet I learn so much from these little creatures that live in my house. Like for instance, did you know that it is possible to completely bend your body in half? Or that sleeping on the floor was an adventure? Or that it was possible to giggle for no apparent reason for hours on end? It seems I once knew these facts but perhaps the process of growing up has made me forget.

The Toil (September 2013)

I remember vividly the day we were told that John had cancer. I remember my feelings, my fears, and the tears. But mostly I remember my husband’s tremendous optimism and how sure he was that God was going to carry us through this, refine us and make us stronger in the end. Granted we are not at the end yet, but I often find myself wondering if we have, in fact, gotten any stronger.

Physically my husband is far from strong. He cannot walk more than a hundred yards without having to stop and rest. He has lost a tremendous amount of weight. He is in a lot of pain and he has no energy. Emotionally, he is spent as well. He has very little patience with the children. Not that I blame him, I often have little patience and I am perfectly healthy. He and I rarely talk. When we are together we stare blindly at the screen or busy ourselves with whatever else may be going on. It is as if there is nothing left to discuss. We have accepted that this is life. His job is to get better. Mine is to make sure the family unit stays in tact. After that, there is little else to discuss.

Oh how I miss what we once had. When we were dating we’d talk for hours about our dreams and our future, what our kids would be like, where we’d travel, etc. Then once we had kids we threw ourselves into being the All American Family. We had a decent home and decent cars. We attended church on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. In fact John was the worship pastor and I was the children’s leader. The girls were in dance classes and art classes. They took piano, gymnastics, swim lessons and participated in the community theatre (not all in the same semester of course). We were involved in what they did. We loved watching them and being a part of their activities. We homeschooled. John would come home for lunch almost every day and we would eat together. The girls would hold onto his legs as he tried to go back to work. They made it a ritual to stand outside and wave good-bye to daddy when he went back to work. We laughed. We loved. We enjoyed.

But this thing called cancer stole all of that from us. First the material was taken. We moved out of our house and into my parents’ home. We needed to come home so we’d have help with childcare and getting John to his medical appointments. And well, until that decent house nestled in a quiet neighborhood in Louisiana sold, we had to come home because financially we were strapped. We left almost everything we had with the exception of some electronics and clothes and moved from Louisiana to Oklahoma. We gave away our pets and much of our furniture. We said good-bye to as many friends as we could and we loaded up in the van and we moved. Cancer stole our home, our pets and our livelihood.

But the worse was yet to come. At first, we were strong. We were going to beat this. But the weeks wear on you and after awhile cancer began to steal our uumph. We no longer laugh. Instead we cry. We no longer play. Instead we hurt. We no longer enjoy. Instead we survive. My husband cannot go to much of my children’s activities. He often can’t even get out of the chair. He can’t spend time laughing with us anymore because he is recovering. My girls move through life without questions. There is really no reason to ask. The answer is always “because daddy is sick.”

Finally cancer stole my dreams. All I ever wanted was to be a wife and a stay at home mom. I wanted to be the one to do the daily raising of my girls and watch them grow up beautifully inside and out. I wanted to help guide them so that they’d make wise decisions and hopefully one day the ultimate decision to follow Christ. But cancer stole that as well. It took away my husband’s ability to work. I am so very thankful that I have a marketable skill and could find a good job but every morning when I head off to work, I leave behind that which I want most, my ability to be there for my girls, to experience life with them and to guide them and help shape them.

Of course I do not blame my husband. I love him. I miss him. He would not have chosen this path for himself or his family. But it is the path handed to us. Gone are the days of enjoying life. Replaced are the days of surviving life; working to pay bills and have health insurance. This is perhaps, my biggest regret, the life that I feel has been stolen from me in returning to work full-time. I miss my babies like you would not believe. I think sometimes I do blame John for taking that one thing from me. I know it is not his fault but I have to lash out at something.

I am curious to see if this cancer will steal all that we have or if it will slowly creep away, as it crept in. One day will we wake to find the cancer gone and my husband returned? Will the laughter and the childish ways of our girls return to our home on a regular basis? Will we enjoy each other as a family once again? Will there be anything left of our marriage? All questions I cannot answer with certainty. For now we hold onto the only hope we can grasp and try as hard as we might to protect our little ones from the harsh reality of life.

The answers will all come, one day…

Replenishment (November 2013)

As we struggle down this path called cancer. There have been only 2 constants – John’s poor health and God’s perfect provision. I do not understand how those without faith make it through crisis. No, I’m not looking for a debate, I’m simply providing a testimony. Without faith I would have caved long ago.

God keeps showing Himself faithful. He has not chosen to heal John yet and I do not know if He will. But He has ministered to us. He has provided for us financially – I have a good job, our house is now under a lease/purchase agreement and family and friends have made generous gifts to keep us afloat. We have been able to pay all of our bills and my kids have been able to continue in their sports without a tremendous financial strain.

God is providing for our children. Just this weekend, one of Elaina’s good friends from Louisiana drove down (well her parents drove) to spend the weekend with the girls. I worry about my girls. The day to day of watching their father suffer. Elaina, I worry about the most, simply because she is the one who is old enough to fully understand this situation with her father. She wants desperately to spend time with him. She sits in his room and just watches him. She has begun to complain about stomach pains and being ill. I attribute it to stress. I have prayed that she would make a good friend here in Oklahoma. Someone who lives close enough that they can come and play and hang out together. This prayer, I am still waiting on God to answer. So when He sent her friend from Louisiana, I was in tears over His wonderful gift. A weekend to enjoy with a buddy to get out of the house and away from the sadness. Thank you God for providing her that release.

God has also provided us a church family that loves us and cares for us. They brought an abundance of food and snacks when John was in the hospital. They listened to me cry and sent cards and encouraging notes.

My constant prayer is that John’s suffering ends soon. That he is either made whole again in his earthly body or taken to his heavenly body which knows no more agony. The sadness in the second scenario is for the girls and me. The things they will miss out on with him. The things he could teach them. Knowing the love of an earthly father and the strong arms to carry you through tough times, these are things I want for my girls. The thought of them missing out on that saddens me. They have/had such a wonderful daddy. And selfishly, I am grieved by the thought of walking through life without him as well. He has always been my Spiritual strength and guide, my companion, my husband. He is someone I could talk to, and laugh with and cry with.

I don’t know how this will end. But I do know that God is going to take care of us – John, the girls and me.

A Ray of Hope (December 2013)

A month ago, after John’s second surgery, the surgeon suggested there was nothing more he could do and the oncologist wouldn’t see us. It was a vicious cycle, oncologist says we have to treat the infection – talk to the surgeon; Surgeon says, infection is caused by cancer, kill the cancer, kill the infection. We were at a huge crossroads of despair. The surgeon suggested we call hospice and try and get his pain under control. He called the oncologist and made his suggestion and she agreed to see us.

Her plan, a hail mary pass at chemo again. It would not cure him but it would likely buy him more time. On the flip side, chemo for an individual this sick (malnutrition, known infection, recovering from major surgery) is very risky. We were warned that it could back fire and ultimately bring about his demise faster. But John is a fighter. He did not want to give up.

So we took the chance – and today, one month later, we are seeing definite signs of improvement! Is it working? Will this bring about comfort and a small level of normalcy back to our lives? Will it allow us the freedom to move out on our own? I’m not sure, but it does provide a ray of hope.

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