A little information for those who do not know my story. Eden is my third daughter, she peacefully slipped away on July 29^th 2018. Nathan and I put her to bed, happy and healthy the night before, and at some point, in her regular 5 hour stretch, Jesus took her home. She wasn’t sick.

I ended last weeks post with elaborating on the first 2 of 4 E’s that make up my grief journey. Exhaustion, Emptiness, Exposed, Embarrassed.

If you didn’t catch that, back up to October 6th post to get an idea of all 4. Before this all happened in my life, I wouldn’t have thought those would be the dominant emotions to arise. Although I don’t think I could have anticipated anything about this catastrophe. What I am sharing is merely my story, and my interpretation of the details. Others who go through something similar may experience something completely different. That is the tricky thing about grief, it drags in all these past hurts and insecurities and mixes it all into this swirling vortex of misery.

Embarrassed and Exposed

The morning we lost Eden I felt a bombardment of crazy emotions. It seems like an insignificant thing to worry about, but I was overwhelmed by the thought of sharing this devastating news with my friends and family. I would like to think it wasn’t my pride that came up in such a turbulent time, but maybe it was pride. I believe it was mostly imagining how horrified these people were going to be. Sharing devastating news to the people you love is heartbreak on top of heartbreak. Regardless, the fear was overwhelming. It sticks out in my very hazy memory from that day. Like anything shameful, you want to keep it a secret, hidden in the dark. No one can know how unworthy and inadequate I really am. It wasn’t just the mere fact that this news would hurt these people, more so I felt painfully exposed admitting what just happened. My baby died. On my watch. My one job in this world. I failed my daughter. I have never felt shame like I did in those first days. It was crushing. I had just finished the book The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. She explains guilt vs shame. I am not guilty, it wasn’t that I did something wrong. I am shameful, I AM something wrong.

“I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. Something we have done, experienced or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.” B Brown.

My parents were on a motorcycle trip in Washington and arrived hours after all the commotion. Nathan and I had not left our bed since the coroner took Eden. Mom and dad fell onto our laps and we all sobbed. All four of us, undone. This was too much. I just wanted to die. Like a lot of kids, I felt so inadequate growing up. I felt like I was always disappointing my parents. When my first daughter Aspen was born I wrote in my journal “…One of the best moments of my life, I have never felt such pride as I did the moment I handed Aspen Louise into my dad’s arms. Finally, I did something right!” Any pride I had was ripped away. I had, once again revealed that I was horribly flawed. That I failed to be good enough. I failed Eden, I failed my family, again. I felt exposed, vulnerable and horribly inadequate.

Exposed & Embarrassed go hand in hand. I am continually using nautical references when I refer to my journey. Waves of grief, holding onto our anchor etc. My dad and I had a terrifying experience one night (which I will share in a moment) on his boat that left us both with a profound appreciation for the unpredictability of the sea. At the end of the day all your hope and faith go into the anchor that grounds you – amongst an unrelenting storm. Grief is like ocean waves, not just because of the ebb and flow, but because they are strong, messy and destructive. They have no consideration of anything! If you have ever been surfing or just playing in waves by the ocean, and were blind-sided by a rogue wave, you know the feeling! Pummeling your body, you don’t know which way is up or down, you gasp for air only to get rocked by another wave. Eventually you are puked back onto shore with sand in every orifice and bikini top undone and around your face. Abused & Disoriented. Exposed & Embarrassed. There, a perfect glimpse into my grief journey.

After some thought, the analogy continues. I started thinking of the things that often get caught up in waves along the shore…driftwood and rocks. You see them rolling in and out of the shallows, over and over, tumbling back and forth. They are constantly on the move but not getting anywhere. That’s how I see my life now. I hate myself for this next quote because it’s SO cliché. It about the journey not the destination. It’s overused because its true! That driftwood isn’t going far, but constant tumbling through the waves refines the texture of the wood. It becomes smooth where it had been rough. I am allowing myself to be tossed around in this grief journey. I am leaning into the pain and feeling all the feels necessary. I won’t distract myself or ignore the pain, letting the waves erode my faith. Instead I will submit to the chaotic journey and allow the waves to refine my faith. Real life happens in the journey, what you choose to do amid the chaos. That is where God’s will for you lives.

We treat the subject of God’s will as though it were this crazy, exotic, mysterious thing, but in truth it’s far less cryptic than that. God’s calling is more about a relationship than a route, more journey than destination. It’s about who you are becoming more than where you are going. It’s not something you have to sit around waiting for; it’s something that is all around you, even now! -Levi Lusko

Yesss!!! “It’s about who you are becoming, more than where you are going!” Preach.

There is nothing I love more than telling a long drawn out story. So I will fight my nature and try to tell this story as condensed as possible. No promises.

My dad used to own a 40 foot yacht. It was the summer of 2010, and my first husband had just left me for another woman. I was 25 and very broken. My parents took myself and a friend on a weekend trip to Sucia, a small Island in the San Juan’s located in Washington State. It’s a horseshoe-shaped island, and we had dropped anchor in the crescent-shaped bay. We were sleeping on board that night, there was a full moon and it was totally peaceful when we went to bed. I woke up abruptly to someone banging on the hull of the boat. I leaned over the edge and there was a guy in his tender (small boat) trying to get our attention. He told me that he had been watching our boat for a while and it is most definitely dragging anchor. The wind had picked up in the night, the water was violent, and we were being blown into a very rocky shoreline. I went down into the cabin to wake up my dad. My dad is cool as a cucumber in times of panic, so I wasn’t too worried. Meanwhile, I had to throw myself between our boat and sailboats that the crashing waves were thrusting us into. As dad hit the button for the anchor to reel in, he started up the engines. The prop seized, something was wrong. Keep in mind, when we lifted the anchor we were suddenly really on the move with nothing holding us down! Dad realized that when he started the engine the prop got tangled in trap lines that the anchor had collected when it was dragging. The engine was useless, and we were now plowing through the bay, completely out of control, missing sailboats by only centimeters. I will never forget Dad looking at me saying, “What do we do!? What do we do?!” Damned if I know!!

My friend Kelsi and I started to realize this was serious. Dad jumped into action and hopped into our tender that was tethered behind the yacht (Kelsi thought he was abandoning us lol). Flailing, he was desperately trying to stretch out and reach for boats as we blast by them. There were maybe three boats we would pass by before the rocks. We weren’t close enough to the first two. Last chance. First attempt he misses and almost fell in the water. Last ditch effort he grabs ahold of the sailboats tender that it was dragging. We now have a chain link of our boat to the tender, tender to dad’s legs, dad’s hands to the other tender, other tender to sailboat. I need to draw a diagram.

He drags us in close to this sailboat and so we can beat on the side of it to wake up the captain. Out comes this classic seasoned sailor. My memory has him paints as the Highliner guy from the fish sticks box. We quickly tether our boats together and took turns watching the shore to make sure his anchor would hold both our boats through the storm.

I get queasy reliving that story. It was pure panic and desperation. But what a metaphor for life! Will your anchor hold? What do you cling to when the storms of life rise up? For those who don’t believe in a high power I’m actually asking you! What do you cling to?! When Eden died it was the most natural reaction to desperately cling to Christ. My rock and my fortress. Some cling to family, that is their fortress. But at the end of the day they are just as human as you are. If all my hope was in my family, I may as well have left this earth when Eden did. It’s hard to believe that there is something more important than our closest connections here on earth. Our spouses and children. I could easily be distracted in the good times, thinking that’s all I really need. But when shit hits the fan, and a part of your family, an extension of your body is suddenly taken, your baby! …then what? I am making the choice to lean into the pain, and empty myself to accept God’s strength. It’s too bad it takes tragedy to come to this place. It’s what God calls ALL of us to do. “Lean not on your own understandings. In all your ways submit to Him and he will make your path straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

It’s nearly impossible to grasp this concept, that there is something better in store, than the great loves in our earthly life. Love for my children and husband is overcome by the love God has for us, unconditionally.

Our anchor wasn’t holding in the storm. In chaos and fear we scrambled to find grounding. When tragedy exposes your inadequate anchor, you better scramble to find one that holds before you are tossed and damaged among the rocks. The two boats held through the remainder of the storm and until morning. I am continuing to learn from that experience. I knew God allowed it to encourage my dependence on Him. My life at the time wasn’t going as planned, but after that weekend I vowed to cling to Him as my anchor, and He would restore my life. And restore He did!

When Peter walked on the water towards Jesus, he and all the disciples were terrified. Peter showed incredible faith in what he did. Notice that in the midst of the storm, when lives were at risk and doubt set in, Jesus could have just calmed the storm. Instead He gave the faithful supernatural abilities to walk through the storm in an extraordinary way. Peter walked on water.