I have been dedicated to employing a task oriented coping strategy for the past 6 months. I have been very emotionally compromised; I would recognize it, detach, and formulate a task or a plan to deal with the issue. I even wrote out my thoughts and plans for addressing some of these issues.
I'm sitting here, at my computer, crying and wondering how many more plans I should make. How many more tasks should I assign myself? At some point, I think I turn back to emotional coping. I bought myself a book today. An entirely depressing book that included these words somewhere on the cover: Forty, Fat, Fatigue and Hormones.
Some people would dial it down and break it apart to the level that we humans are just a pile of hormones, chemical responses that drive our choices and define us. I think we are a little more than that. I also think it can't hurt to see what the hormone gurus have to say for the aging female heading into menopause. This is where it gets real and you know who your friends are. If they can handle you during a rough ten year patch, well, by golly, they're in for life. (I mean you probably only have 25 more of them anyway.) My life is just beginning, but in fact, I'm an old lady. (Except for when I took Noah to the school today and someone thought I was also getting a vision and hearing screen today. "Yes, thank you, I am a high school student, here for my vision screening. Thank you very much." Let's be honest, it's probably because he is about 10 inches taller than me, but whatever.)
In retrospect, had I known what was coming after the move, I would have been more afraid. And this is why the good Lord does not show us the entire hallway. He lights our path just a few steps at a time. We would be far too overwhelmed to know the whole of our life or even the whole of one chapter.
I am working through this, whatever it is, fatigue, hormones, stressors I feel unequipped to deal with. One day at a time. Each evening I really do congratulate myself for getting through another day. I walk the neighborhood and I pray; I thank God for this new and hard life that I know He will use to build my character, my faith, and expand my influence. I know with certainty that He gathers my tears and toil and one day in the future He will hand them back to me as a beautiful canvas. A precious life chapter. He knows the end at the beginning and He leads us to it.
It brings me to the idea of endings. I just found out that a friend of mine passed away last week. Incidentally at the time of her passing, I was wondering just where she was at in her cancer journey. Clearly it is not someone I am deeply connected to in this stage of my life, but the time we were in each other's lives was very special. I just sat and stared and tried to wrap my mind around it. Mary isn't that much older than I am; she has a son. And last week she met Jesus. There is one thing to aging and it is this, I can only expect to receive news like this more and more and more. People are going to be at the end of their life as I ever move toward the end of mine.
I close my eyes and picture Mary. Beautiful. Tall. Blonde. I would sit in church between Mary and her sister, Laurie, and I was basically an armrest. We had many, many laughs. People sometimes just keep me around for the comedic relief and not much else; I don't always have the wisdom. In this case, I brought the entertainment. I would often mention, in a passed note, during the last 15 minutes of the sermon that I really could go for a Big Mac and did they also agree? Their eyes would light up and their shoulders would be shaking with laughter, and they'd whisper..."Stop it!" I know it is isn't proper and I am rightfully ashamed of my drifting mind, but I can still hear their laughter. I still remember the sound of those whispers.
I close my eyes and picture Mary. Beautiful. Tall. Blonde. Perfectly healed and seeing the face of her Savior. Her mind was not drifting. I am certain she was not whispering. Laughing, though, I'd put money on it. I know last Tuesday was not a bad day for Mary. It was the first day she truly lived.
I think of the day when people will find out that I have passed from this life. I am vain enough to hope that at least one person will be sad that I am no longer here, but I hope it will not linger and time will ease the pain sooner than later.
My hope:
1) My children will dig deep, leave out anger, and take hold of hope and Jesus (No matter when it happens, it is hard to lose a parent.)
2) Ryan will know he has been the love of my life, but it is never wrong to have more than one love in a lifetime.
3) My friends will remember what has been my passion and they will pursue Jesus so that we can be together again one day.
4) I hope that you will close your eyes and picture Angela. (Fatigued. Forty. Hormonal. Whatever you picture...) Maybe this is what you will see.... Tears are supposed to be no more but I can't imagine it any other way because my eyes are the window to my soul.... Tears of joy and completeness as I lay my eyes on the One who has led me all the way to this moment. He not only hands me a beautiful, redeemed chapter of time but opens the entire book built with tears and toil that He has lovingly authored. I finished; joy is here for good. It will not be a bad day for Angela. It will the first day that I truly begin to live.
Friends, we journey through this life and it is hard. We have some hard patches. I am stuck in a hard patch that I am dutifully trying to find ways to dig out of. Maybe it is fruitless. Maybe the point is to learn how to engage ALL the coping strategies for harder days are coming. I don't know, I don't know.
I do firmly know what is in my future. I know that I will see Mary again; I will hear her laugh. I will pass her notes but probably not during the sermon because in the presence of the Almighty we will likely not be so frivolous.
No matter the journey to get there, cancer, COVID, floods, famine, ice storms, darkness, chaos, warfare that battles for the soul.... We keep our eyes on the finisher of our faith. We take our stand here. For Jesus. For what is right. We persevere.
And then we stand before Jesus - the One to whom all authority is given.
We live.
The End.
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