Thankful... and bazooka gum

1989: Matt 10, Me 7

Doesn't Matt look protective of me?

 I am thankful... thankful Matt was my brother for my first 8 years 2 months and nearly 1 week of life.  I am now 28... and I look back on a tragedy that was traumatic yes... but I trust a God (the only God) who has proven Himself throughout history as one who is worthy of being trusted.  And I hold onto hope... hope for my emotional healing, hope for a future not wrought in failure and despair, hope to come through with a "faith that can walk in the dark" (Dr. Kellemen), and hope of joining my brother Matt in Heaven when the Lord determines that my time and service on earth is through.
My mom just picked up a new CD today and I heard these lyrics in the last track:
         
           "Knowin' what I know about heaven... believin' that you're all the way home...
            knowin' that you're somewhere better... is all I need to let you go... 
            I could hope that I could pray you back... but why on earth would I do that... 
   when you're somewhere life and love never ends.. oh, knowin' what I know about heaven" 
                                                                                                           (Guy Penrod)

        I wonder how many trees in heaven he's climbed ...or sports games he's played... bazooka gum... swimming pools... water slides... camping and hiking trips... sledding and biking hills... the list goes on.  But you know what?  Heaven is so much better than the best things on earth can even compare to.  Matt's probably so caught up in singing to Jesus that he hasn't even missed all those boyhood thrills from over two decades over.

And so I let him go... as I hold on to and cherish our childhood memories. 

The reality of the wreck

I just added pics of my brother from the last year of his life to the post before this one.

Someday I may write a book and I'll entitle it "Grief: 2 decades later" (which is actually the title of my post a few back).  I had often thought of writing a book... that is why I started this blog.  But I didn't know I would be really living the grief as if it happened last week.  I've never mourned like this before.  Would my childlike faith have sustained me if I had grieved the death of my big brother at the age of 8... who had just barely escaped death herself?  God would have protected me... and he did: by the protective barrier (can't think of the correct neurological term right now) around my brain until I could handle it.  But handle it? I wasn't handling it to well though.  The pain is real, but I'm moving forward through the grief stages.  (I'm also highly medicated so that I can move forward.)  Someday I will write about all my questions regarding God's grace being sufficient, but I really just want to say that I don't understand a lot, but I am choosing to cling to God.  To be completely and utterly honest on this blog is not something I'm ready to... I just started doing it with God.  But seriously... I have questions.  And its ok... it is OK to have questions!  And it is OK to grieve! even if it is 2 decades later!  My big brother is gone... I have been deprived of growing up with my only (blood) sibling.  My brain is (still) damaged, changing the course of my future.  This is a lot for me to accept and take to God and say: "I don't like it... but I trust you."  This is not an easy choice, but I make it.

              "If we are to honor God by trusting Him, and if we are to find peace for ourselves,
               we must come to the place where we can honestly say, 'God, I do not have to 
               understand. I will just trust you.' " Jerry Bridges

I had a brother

I had a brother. I really did. This is Matthew Richard Yates... his 10 year and 11 month life on earth should be recognized/ acknowledged.

These pictures are probably from 1989 or/and 1990 (the last year of Matt's earthly life). That's MY brother! and we should have grown up together... we should have. But God called him home sooner than anyone would have imagined.   

The one on the left is me with my brother Matthew, my mom, and my Grandma Elaine who lived to the age of 89 (just passed away last June 2010). Grieving her loss on Christmas day (combined with the reality of my head injury) triggered this enormous loss of my fun-loving tease of a brother Matt. 

hope for healing

"Everywhere a greater joy is preceded by a greater suffering"~ Augustine
      (quoted in Philip Yancey's: Where is God When it Hurts).

I know it seems like I am not making progress... but yesterday I did! And as I was "above water," I caught a glimpse of my Savior's glory / this lump of clay caught a glimpse of her Potter's face.  I wish I could find a way to just embed an audio clip here of the song  that my heart was able to worship to in freedom and JOY.  (Perhaps I'll find it on youtube.)  Kerrie Roberts: Savior to Me (Sing Glory)

There is hope... for me... and for you.  My main problem has been that my circumstances won't change... oh but there is HOPE... hope of the Joy and the peace from Christ that will be mine in the midst of my losses.  I am coming to KNOW God in a deeper way...

I know this whole page here is full of complaining about drowning etc... but I don't want Christians to feel that we cant go to God with our hurts and be real.  (We should even be able to go to each other... but thats another matter.)  It is not comfortable for me to complain to a God who is so perfect... but I am learning through "God's Healing for Life's Losses" that complaining TO God is the biblical stage of grief to replace the stage of  anger.  But I must go TO Him with the pain instead of accusing Him or denying His character. 

King David's "drowning" lament

  This blog is not about me... that was never the intention from the beginning.  I know that lately it has been about me, but perhaps as you journey with me through this pain, you will discover with me the joy of healing and experience with me a new level of faith and trust in the Faithful One, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who promises that He is with me, even when I don't feel Him. 

I am in "acute grief" and in need of intense therapy. Grief over a tragedy that occured over 20 years ago is not easily dealt with I'm sure... but there is hope.  So enough about me....

I was looking for a lament passage today and discovered Psalm 69:  David's honesty before God about his own "drowning" experience (he probably had several) .  I think I look too quickly over these passages until I find myself wanting to cry out those same words to God.  (And it is hard to be honest with God.)  Ok... so just listen to David (known as the "man after God's own heart"):
"Save me, O God, for the waters have threatened my life. I have sunk in deep mire, and there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched; my eyes fail while I wait for my God... But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Lord, at an acceptable time; O God, in the greatness of Your lovingkindness, answer me with Your saving truth. Deliver me from the mire and do not let me sink; may I be delivered from my foes and from the deep waters... Answer me, O Lord, for Your lovingkindness is good; according to the greatness of Your compassion, turn to me, and do not hide Your face from your servant, for I am in distress; answer me quickly." (Psalm 69:1-3,13-14)

Grief is hard

This picture should explain my drowning posts for those who were confused.... I was referring to Matthew 14:22-33.
From Michael W. Smith's song: "Help is on the Way":    He said He'd help you, just reach out and take His hand... His arm is long enough to reach you where you are.


As my body and my brain seem to be shutting down with all the grief and my ability to function is even more limited... I have to keep reaching out to Jesus because I seem to be continually drowning.  But this is not so easy to do.  But supposedly God only gives us what we can bear (with His help)... its just kind of a lot right now.

grief... two decades later

An eight year old girl's brain (even a whole one) cannot grieve the enormity of loss that occurred at 4:30pm Friday July 6th 1990. So here I am... grieving my big brother and a healthy whole brain.  Grieving for that future that could have been if God had only... but He didn't... and I will CHOOSE to still trust Him.  I want to copy down some of Steven Curtis Chapman's lyrics from his album that emerged from his grief over the loss of his little girl. He expresses the honesty of his grief and unswerving faith in God so well... I can so relate:

"This is not how it should be... this is not how it could be... but this is how it is... and our God is in control...     This is not how it will be... when we finally will see...we'll see with our own eyes... He was always in control...

And we'll sing Holy, Holy, Holy is our God... and we will finally, really understand what it really means...

So we'll sing Holy, Holy, Holy is our God... while we're waiting for that day... This is not where we planned to be... when we started this journey... but this is where we are... and our God is in control... Though this first taste is bitter... there will be sweetness forever...when we finally taste and see that our God is in control....."

His song "Faithful"  are on the side of this page.  Powerful.

swimming in a different ocean

My pulse quickens, my stomach cramps, my brain "freezes"... what is happening to me?  No one just died.  But yet I have this constant overwhelming feeling of loss.  Grief... not depression... it is grief.  2010 brought many losses my way.  2011 is supposed to be my year I hear.  But there may always be times when I will feel like this.  You see... my brain will not heal like a broken leg.  Sure, I've been living for over 20 years without part of my right frontal lobe, so why am I grieving for it now? I am grieving for the loss of my future.  A life of dependency awaits me... particularly on my parents.  But also doctors, cognitive therapist, counselor therapists (just started on last week), meds to keep me from the mental hospital, and yes... dependency on the other members of the body of Christ. 

And yes, this is rather a new reality for me.  (MRI in May showed volume loss... cognitive therapist informed me in a month ago or so that part of the brain was removed back in 1990 because it was so damaged... diagnosed me with post-concussive syndrome because the traumatic brain injury never went away...)

Every area of my life is affected because there are many skills that the right frontal lobe offers. I am cognitively, psychologically, socially, and physically impaired... leaving me emotionally drowning.
I had high ambitions for my life... an independent spirit, I believed that the Lord was calling me to leave all comforts behind and follow Him into the darkest places of the world... to take His Word and The Gospel to those who aren't blessed to be surrounded by churches and Christians.  I've given up this dream in the last couple years or so... due to constant illnesses. 
But now I am so dependent in every area of my life, I don't even want to leave my parents' home.  (And yes I will be 29 this year.) 

So... when I show a picture of drowning or post something on facebook, etc, it is not merely for attention sake... it is because i am desperate.  Desperate for your encouragement, desperate for Christ's love to live through you,  desperate for God's Word to refresh me, desperate for the strength to be back into His Word and His presence, desperate to stop drowning, or even treading water, desperate to swim... even though the waters that I swim in are vastly different  than what I had always thought they would be.

And when I start drowning again...

                                                      would someone(s) please throw me a life line?