Will you be my Aaron and Hur?

I was reminded recently of the story of when the Israelites went to battle against the Amalekites in Exodus 17 - the well known story where Joshua led the battle, while Moses watched and held his arms up in recognition of their dependence upon the Lord.  As they fought, they were victorious whenever Moses kept his arms up - but then he got tired!  And they sat him on a rock, and Aaron and Hur stood by him and held up his arms, helping Israel emerge victorious, and Moses as the leader knew his need for others to help him!

I want to ask for your prayers.  I'm not even sure exactly for what, though maybe you can figure it out from what I write below.  This past two weeks or so have been hard - full, overwhelming at times, but more than that I have felt like I hit a wall, and have been struggling a lot with motivation, with focus, with ability to think, to work hard, to get things done.  I feel "saturated", like when rain comes and soaks the ground to the point where it cannot absorb any more - my brain, my heart, my soul feel saturated, like there has been too much and I am now unable to respond to anything new.

One of the dynamics has been that I have missed Brandi terribly in the past few weeks.  Maybe from Eli's birthday onward, I have felt her loss daily, and it has been a heavy weight upon my heart.  I took the kids away last weekend for an over night to the Great Wolf Lodge in Massachusetts, an indoor waterpark/resort/hotel.  The kids had fun, it was a great memory to make - but i was exhausted by it.  The kids wanted me to do things with them - which I had anticipated - but it left little room for rest for me. The resort was also filled with families - moms and dads, with their kids, enjoying the resort, and I found that particularly difficult this time.  As the holidays approach - with Halloween the first (Brandi helped set some great patterns for our kids that I will be able to keep up, but still...) - so much more will i miss.  A year ago we were still in a fairly blissfully positive place where her treatment was going well, she was feeling generally well, and we could not have imagined what lay in store for us at this point a year ago.

Not only do I miss her - but I am finding myself fighting a battle in my own heart.  I can see, imagine, and even live out on a day to day basis some of what life looks like moving on, living life without her.  We do it, and there are moments (like tonight, after dinner in the kitchen having a wrestling/tickle match with the kids) where there is real joy.  But I don't want it.  I don't want life with out her.  I don't want to move on - I have realized that this is a part of where I am at, what I am struggling with.  And I know Who I need to talk with about it, but I have found that difficult to do.  You can pray for help with that. 

I do see God's grace in the daily things - we have had a beautiful fall here in CT, and my heart has been pierced by it (like Faramir and Frodo looking out of the Window to the West in The Two Towers).  Even in our garden - which has been neglected too much, and has suffered some, I hope not irreparable damage - has shown unusual life, like the fact that our rose bush, which seemed done for the year, produced this beauty in the past two weeks:

Small reminders of the Lord's daily grace that keeps me going - for these I am thankful, while the big picture seems much harder - Lord, what are you doing in this?  What do you have for me?  What good could there be that will help me process the loss of what seemed to be so exceedingly good in our life together? I feel like I am limping through life - maybe carrying a huge weight of loss and sorrow right now, that sometimes I let down for a moment but had felt very heavy lately.  Most life tasks feel difficult, like I'm walking with lead in my shoes or something.  I've been sleeping more but not being rested.  It all just seems hard right now..

Thank you friends for listening to my rambling.  I have not posted because I wanted to make sense of all of this - I finally realized I just needed to write.  Know that your prayers, and notes, mean so much to me.

Matt

Happy Birthday Eli

Happy Birthday Eli!

Today our little buddy turned 7!  We have had a good two days of celebrating  - yesterday with a party for friends at Lighthouse point, including games, a pinata, and an absolute gift of a gorgeous warm fall day by the Sound; today after school we celebrated with Pepe's pizza (the local gold standard by many accounts) and then came home for cake with some family friends and then presents.  It really was a fun two days, and our kids talk about Brandi but don't seem to miss her actively. 

As for me, and "Nana and Pappy" it was bittersweet - more sweet than bitter, but I missed her a lot in the last two days, remembering when we had a party for eli there two years ago when we knew the cancer had come back and were capturing moments as best we could.  It was a magical day two years ago - I'm not sure these two days were magical, but they were much better than I imagined it.  Eli has a few day's work of Lego's in front of him, with Katie all too willing to help out as she can! 

I'll write more soon, but I wanted to say hi and thanks for the messages we received concerning Eli's brithday.  It means so much to hear from you all as you get a chance to say hi.

in Him

Matt

Special moments

Dear Friends,

Its been a while...sorry about that.  Life has been full, and promises to continue to be so.  I was thinking that in the past few weeks there have been a few special moments that I have been reflecting on, ones that have been, as you might imagine, full of a whole lot of different emotions along the way.

1.  A special trip to NY.  Thanks to a number of holidays in September, my kids have been off school a bit, and we have been talking about taking a trip to New York City.  In December 2013 we had a very magical trip, staying in Times Square and seeing the Lion King on broadway, going for a carriage ride in central park in the snow, visiting the Christmas tree in Rockefeller center and FAO Schwartz before it closed (oh, and the Lego store in Rockefeller plaza).  It was a special trip for us at the time, and the kids have talked about it a lot.  So, I thought lets do it again!  As with last time, we were provided with a hotel room by family (thanks, Nana!) right near the NY public library, which allowed us to walk from Grand Central when we arrived, we walked through Bryant park to Times Square that evening to the M&M store, checked out Toys R Us, and then crashed back in our room.  In the morning, we got breakfast, played soccer in our hotel room, went to the library and read Elephant and Piggy and Magic Tree House, and then headed up to Rockefeller center - to the Lego store, really!  The food, and the view from the Top of the Rock, and the trip to the American Girl Doll store were all secondary to the lego store for Eli.  We had a fun trip - but I missed Brandi a lot, missed her ability to make these trips so special, and missed her joy in our family adventuring together.

2.  Friends special events.  In the past 24 hours, I have had close friends have a baby (welcome Owen!) and other friends announce that after a long, and at times difficult wait, they have been chosen by a birth mother for adoption in November.  Both of these events fill my heart with joy - and yet that joy is tinged, as it seems most of life is these days, with the sense of how much more special it would be to share that joy with Brandi, who loved babies and family and was so good at encouraging, valuing, championing, and celebrating moms and families. She is, I believe, rejoicing in heaven about these events - but I long for her at my side in these moments.

3. This is more about me, but I have also gotten back into the pulpit again - the first time since, apart from one outlier in June, December.  It has been, in fact, a joy to return to pastoring our church in this way.  I have been encouraged that I have been able to think, study, and prepare well - I wondered if I would be able to earlier this year.  I have been able to prepare even given my weekly schedule and commitment to the kids, which I was worried about (maybe, just maybe, it does work better to start earlier and be done by Friday afternoon!).  But I thought I would share that with you as an encouragement.

Finally, a prayer request.  I have felt a bit, well, stuck for the past month about what the next steps are in pursuing my grieving process.  I have been busy with the start of school and things at church - but have strongly sensed that I cannot allow pursuing this process to be sidelined.  I have finished the H. Norman Wright book, and have been avoiding actually working on the grief journal until I just started this week - but only once.  Please pray that I will stay at it, and that the Lord will meet me in it.

Thank you friends.  I include a picture or two from NYC at the bottom for your enjoyment.

Matt

What do I miss the most?

Dear Friends,

Sorry I have been so absent.  I would like to be more disciplined to keep you all updated - the kids have learned to swim this summer, they started school on Monday, and seem to be doing well.  I am back working at the church, which is both stretching but also good in many ways.  I was able to preach this past Sunday, and it was encouraging that the fog of the past eight months has lifted enough for some clarity of thought and communication.  It has been good to be busy - but I don't know if it has been healing as much as distraction, as I feel this undercurrent that surfaces once the kids go to bed and I am alone in the house with my thoughts, the yawning emptiness of life without Brandi.

I have been seeing a counselor some, and he asked me last time we met recently the question "What do you miss the most"?  I had not put it into words until then, but two things emerged:

1.  I miss her companionship.  I was single longer than most (38 years old), struggled with but had found some good rhythms of life as a single guy in ministry, but when finally Brandi came into my life as my wife, it was one of the greatest gifts.  She and I had talked often of how Psalm 16:6 it says "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance."  Whatever translation I used back then, it referred to the "lines" as "boundary lines".  We talked about the way that meant, for both of us, prolonged singleness as a boundary line, one that we both struggled to receive as "pleasant" at times, but in the end came to see the many blessings of those years.  We also rejoiced that in marriage we now had new boundary lines that certainly felt very pleasant to us.  I miss her friendship.  I miss the day to day processing of ideas, relationships.  I miss the joy of doing life together, a phrase we used often.  We didn't want the parallel lives it can be so easy to live - we wanted life together with each other.  I miss her in decision making, from what new beds to buy the kids to what to have for dinner or who to spend our weekend with.  I miss walking around our neighborhood holding hands.  

2.  I miss the richness she brought to my life, and to our life as a family.  SO many times this summer, I realized that even when we follow the pattern of things we have done together in the past, it just isn't the same.  I can't plant a garden, plan a picnic, build a play fort, go on a road trip, have a movie night with the kids, without feeling how flat it feels without all the many, little ways that her love, her creativity, her special flair and touch made our lives so rich.  She was not flashy, not ostentatious, and in many ways simple in her creativity and care - but it was rich, deep, and it brought significance and sweetness to many things both big and small, both mundane and special - in fact, she might have been even better at making the mundane special than at pulling off the special!  So I miss her in so many ways.  How would she have added to Katie's first day of school?  What would she have done to make our trip to the aquarium more memorable?  What would she have done with the flowers in our garden which are dying in the drought and need to be deadheaded now?  How would she have decorated the kids room with their new lofted beds?  

Some have asked me if I miss her in particular circumstances - and it means a lot that they ask, and I so appreciate their care.  In my heart, though, what swells up in my heart is the reality that I miss her every day, many times every day.  It is this emptiness, this gaping hole rent in our life and in my soul, that wells up when the kids are in bed...

If you pray, pray for us in this way:

Pray for the kids, particularly Katie, as they adjust to school.  It has gone well, please pray for more days of this.

Pray for management of life - I often feel like I'm just surviving, which might be enough for now, but I long for it to be more than that, I just don't feel like I have the energy or ability to make it happen.

Pray for the Lord's grace for sweet and rich times together with the three of us.

Pray for my grieving process - I have been reading a book recently by H Norman Wright that has a whole series of questions to process, and I think I need to sit down and begin working through those questions, but I haven't yet.  Pray for me to be able to engage with that and for it to be helpful.

Thanks friends.  I leave you with a picture from this summer, the first day of school

Matt

Sweet and sad...

Dear Friends,

One year ago, we celebrated Brandi's 40th birthday.  Given the year we had had, she was thankful to have reached forty, and we celebrated with an understated but very happy family celebration.

Today, Eli and Katie and I watched the video of surprising her with muffin/cupcakes for breakfast that morning, and singing happy birthday to her.  We went out to a favorite breakfast place (Lena's in Westville), and then spent the day at home together.  It was a sweet day in many ways, but like most days a bittersweet one, in that each day seems to remind me in a new way of the depth of her loss.  A trip to Ikea (the first, I think, since her death), swimming in Tanta's pool, or a day at the aquarium were all things that we have done this summer - but like one of those odd internet videos, like a regular member of the scene is suddenly missing, reruns with a huge hole where they once were.  This month has been more painful, I think, than the previous ones, as I have felt the loss more than ever.

Which makes this day even more pronounced in sweet and sad.  The fact that there will never be another birthday for her is both sweet and sad - she is in eternity, and as such I don't think they count any more!  She is healed, and whole, and without pain and without sin and in the presence of the Lord in an eternal state that is beyond our understanding in its fullness.  Sad for us, who mark the day as a remember of the goodness of the gift of her life, and the sadness of our hearts now that she is gone. 

But this day has also been sweet for another reason - for I have been reminded of what a sweet community God has placed me in.  The number of texts, emails, and messages I have received today have reminded me that I am not alone in this loss - that many friends are with me in both the sweet memories and in the sadness of loss.  I have found that my greatest fear is that I will be alone in the pain - and in some ways that is true, for no one can know exactly what my particular shade of grief is like - and yet they expressed words of solidarity, of grieving not just for me but with me, of love for Brandi and love for our family.  I was asked yesterday what I have seen God up to - well, today, I am overwhelmed with the way He has prompted many to minister to me.  Thank you friends.  Thank you Jesus.

I know it has been a long time.  I'm emerging from a time of leave which I have tried to unburden myself as much as possible, but I hope I'll be back in touch more in the coming weeks.  Thank you all for your love and prayers for us.  I'll try to post picture soon, too.

Matt

Prayer for my little ones

Dear Friends,

Will you pray for Eli and Katie tonight?  They both are running a fever - Eli came down with it on Sunday, Katie today.  I had hoped this would be a quiet week at home, with little to do and just a chance to be together...and we are, but not in a happy state as both of them are a bit miserable.  Pray for me, as well, not to catch it, and to care for them well.  Thanks friends.

Matt

In need...

Dear friends,

This is a quick note for prayer.  Will you pray for me when you read this?  I am feeling weary and discouraged, overwhelmed and very much missing my bride gone to be with my Lord.  I have seen the Lord sustain and help, but this past month has been just a hard one for many many reasons.  Please pray for me, that the Lord's encouragement will be strong for me, that I won't give in to despair or discouragement, and that I would receive and know His grace sufficient for me.  Thanks.

Matt