tears over a toilet bowl

Here I sit again... hoping that the writing will be the therapy I'm craving again this evening.  I don't even really know what to say.  I have so much I need to say, but we are still in the place of wait and restriction.  And I have no idea how long that will last.  But when you have tears spilling over when you are scrubbing the toilet (just because you want to be doing some of the normal things in the midst of a very abnormal situation) then I think it's time to sit and write.... even if I have to guard what actually pours out. 

With that, I will start here.  How many times have we complained about the daily chores?  I mean honestly, who really gets up and does the happy dance over toilet bowl cleaning days?  Or how many times have our kids needing rides somewhere, and then somewhere else, and then somewhere else become an annoyance?  Or how many times have we forgotten to slow the train down long enough to put down the "to-do" list and just play with that precious 8 year old that is growing up too fast?

I try to not be that person.  I really make a conscious effort to not do those things.  Remember the foundation of this blog?  To be real and share the beauty in even the storms because of my little hero, my precious Tuffy?  I really work at seizing the moment and remembering the joy in living... because as I learned while we walked that beautiful journey with our son, life on earth does end... and sometimes far too soon.  I know this.  I lived it.  I try to value life deeper and richer because of it.

But I am human... and life... well it is just life sometimes. 

Today, as I muddled through some of the pressing things we are dealing with legally and emotionally today, I found myself just longing for today to be a normal day... hence the tears over the toilet bowl.  I just wanted to shut the door, leave the reality alone a bit, and do what moms do... clean the toilet.  It's a gross job.  I didn't do the happy dance.  But I found myself feeling more normal in those moments than I have in the last 10 days.  I found myself thinking of something... anything... besides the sadness I feel.

But then it hit... those darn tears.  I was scrubbing away and suddenly, like memories have a way of doing, I was bombarded with a remembrance of a time back when my little boy was still alive.  We had been in the hospital for so many days.  I had lost sight of reality almost.  It had been so long I had almost become accustomed to life as a mom living in a hospital rather than a home.   After 69 straight days in ICU, we had a chance to come home for a few days.  I remember how foreign it felt, and yet how completely overjoyed I was when I walked in my house for the first time.  (And I mean literally for the first time.  When he was in the hospital, I didn't leave.  My sweet husband and other children came to me and we lived lift abnormally normal from the wing of the ICU. He was just too sick.  I couldn't leave.  I just couldn't.)  So when we got to come home and I walked in, the joy of the homecoming... I can close my eyes and remember it so clearly.  I remember the smells overwhelming me.  There just isn't anything like the smells from home!    After a time of just drinking up my children, I remember the propelling urge to clean.  I wanted to do everything.  I wanted to feel... normal!  And I started with the grossest job around... the toilets.  I found myself almost hysterically laughing over cleaning the toilets.  It felt so good to do those things I had never really enjoyed.  I was a cleaning machine.  I have always been a clean freak, but that day, you probably could have not found a germ anywhere.  I was cleaning for my therapy... and for my son's safety.  Those two combinations... man.

Today when I was finding myself so thankful for that gross job escape point, I was taken so quickly back to that memory.  Before I knew what happened, I was crying tears over the toilet.  I scrubbed and cried.  I cried for the joy of the memory.  I cried for the ache that the memory brought... like they always bring... for just one more moment with my precious little guy that I miss so much.  And I cried that life was hard enough again that the toilet cleaning was therapeutic.  I don't like it when life is that hard.  No one does.  No one gets up and says, "Man, sure hope today hurts deep enough that I will find cleaning toilets a welcomed relief."  ---disclaimer:  if you find this to be your normal trend, I suggest therapy.  Toilet cleaning should not be the normal therapeutic plan.  It just shouldn't.  And if it is, I will pray for you... and you better call for help.  Now.  Don't wait!  ;)

I don't know sometimes why God does things the way He does.  I really don't.  When you know what I know about Him... that He really is Sovereign, He really is Omnipotent, and He really can turn water into wine or walk on water... then times like this makes me just say, "But God!  You are so BIG!  You could fix this in an instant! WHY?  WHYYYY??????"  I just really don't understand.

Some people think that's a lack of faith.  If you question God you are saying you don't really believe what you say you believe.  I am here to tell you, if you have bought into that lie, STOP NOW!  My questioning God and you questioning God is the furthest thing from a lack of faith!  I have learned in very personal ways throughout all we have been through in this life, that when I AM questioning God is when I am proving to Him most of all just how much I really believe about who He really is!  I have learned that He is so big that He is especially Big enough to allow me to ask Him why. 

Does that mean He always explains?  Nope.  Quite the opposite in fact.  Just like this nightmare we are in right now... my word the road is dark and painful and scary.  And just because I am crying out and crying tears over the toilet bowl while asking WHY doesn't mean that I will stand up and walk out of the bathroom into all the answers being made clear.  I didn't say that by my asking, I expect Him to answer.  Nope.  Not at all.  By my asking, I am just being genuine enough to myself to confess openly what God already sees in my heart.  I don't get it.  I don't like it.  I don't want it.  And He knows it.   By putting voice to it, I am relieving myself of the responsibility of pretending I am okay when I am not.  I am relieving myself of the expectations of having it altogether.  I am granting myself permission to be exactly who I am in this exact moment.  A God fearing, God loving, Jesus worshipping, flesh and blood hurting woman who is ready for another hard journey to be over because I don't get it and I know, I know, I know I am not going to really get it until I get further along and can look back.  I know somehow when I look back I will say, "Yep.   There it is.  There is why it had to be this way.  God always knows and does the best with the worst situations."  But until then, I am going to cry and cry out... and I am so thankful I don't serve a God that would want it any other way than that!

I think it will be years this time.  I really do.  This stuff is deep and difficult and ugly.  I am afraid and I am tired.  Tuffy's journey to heaven was so covered in beauty that even the disease bowed down many times.  I mean it.  I saw God in so many ways.  I could almost touch God He was so thick.  This time I am reaching out my hands in total blindness, feeling around frantically, waiting to feel His touch in this.  But the thing is, I am feeling around because no doubt... NO DOUBT... He is there.  And in His perfect timing, I will find Him fully at work, right in the middle of this pain.  No doubt.

In the meantime, my son is at camp, praising Him in the storm.  My youngest is attending VBS, praising Him in the storm.  My oldest is preparing for the military and we are praising Him in the storm.  And we are clinging.... in so many ways, we are just holding to the promises made good on the cross for the devastation surrounding our teen daughter.

I am sorry if your are hurting today.  Your hurt is just as important as mine and I am sincerely sorry.  And I am thankful if you are in a blessed season.  And I am thankful for any and all of you that share of your good, your bad, and your ugly with me because I find such strength in praying over the needs of others.  So please, share.  And know that I am praying for whomever God brings to mind and heart, while I continue to know that many are praying for me as well. 

And if nothing else is helping you much, resort to my low standard of therapy, and go shed some tears over a toilet!

Robin