Love and Pain

It was more than a year ago today that my heart stopped. I can’t say that this physically occurred, but emotionally, something happened that stifled me. Over the course of the year, I became pregnant, grew a baby, made new friends, my husband began a new job, and I would call it a normal year in the life of the Krismanits family. It was hard. It was beautiful. It was completely mundane most days.

But, I was bound on the inside like nothing I had ever experienced. Paul would encourage me to pray, to seek God, to take time for myself, but nothing worked. Finally, with the guidance of a Christian counselor, Holy Spirit revealed the moment that had “broken” me so-to-speak, and not surprisingly, it was the moment I heard my grandpa had stage 4 cancer.

A couple of saints I know 😉😉

I don’t have time to tell you about my life, to tell you how lonely I felt sometimes, the child of a man who walked away, or how unseen I felt as the quiet kid. That being said, God graciously put two people in my life that never failed to see me, or love even the hidden places in my heart that I didn’t think mattered. Those two people were my grandparents, and I have always loved them with all of my heart. So, when I learned that my grandfather could die, I did the only thing I knew to survive: I stopped feeling.

Now, I didn’t realize right away this is what happened. I just found myself becoming grouchy with everyone that tried to do good to me, like my husband, or my children, in their simple ways they live their life constantly vying for my affection and attention. It felt unnatural to be pulled on over and over and over and over and over. Can’t they see I have nothing to give them? Of course, this triggered me in my relationship with God, how He called me to move away from my family. Can’t He see I need to be there for everyone? I need to be there for my grandpa? Then, this triggered me with my husband. Can’t he do anything besides ministry? Does he think its fun that our life is so chaotic, that I can’t even catch a break to grieve because I’m so concerned about how we will pay our bills? Then, there were my friends, meaningful in their pursuit of my heart, but downright annoying, “You know, God loves you. He can pull you out of this funk.” Hmm. As far as I was concerned, all of His grand plans for my life got me into this funk. I was telling God, “You know, I’ll follow you anywhere, and do anything you call me to do. But, I’M GOING TO NEED MY FAMILY NOT TO DIE OF CANCER. K?” Have you ever bargained with God? My definitions of love get a little fuzzy when I realize God is not very concerned with my comfort level or agenda. Over time, this bitter way of doing life became frustrating, but also inescapable. I went to several counseling sessions, but nothing helped. No roots were exposed. If anything, they heard my circumstance and validated all my emotional flailing with, “Yeah, that’s hard. Set boundaries so the people making your life hard can no longer make your life hard.” Well, I’m married and gave birth to the people making my life hard, sooo…..

Anyway, it turns out, the Counselor I needed was Jesus. He’s really good at counseling. My breakthrough came instantly in the form of a story that Heidi Baker told. Someone asked her to pray for them that they could love like her, such selfless love. She said, “Okay, I’ll pray for you. But, be prepared, you’re going to hurt every day of your life.” Then, I broke.

Oh, so I’m not feeling because I’ve shut down love in my life. OH! 

I wish I had a formula for how this broke open my heart, but all I did was let God love me, again. I sobbed for what felt like forever, and then, repented to my husband and children and friends for being a very hard to love version of myself, lest anyone try to make me feel something I didn’t want to feel. I changed for the better.

God wasn’t finished with me yet, though. I still had to look at my grandpa, and let myself be loved, in all of my pain, in all of my doubt, in all of my humanity that looks so ugly and feels so uncomfortable. 

God was so gracious when I visited my family last month. The last several trips I had been to visit my grandpa, he was very ill. On this last trip, even though the Cancer had continued to spread, he was trying a different treatment option that left him feeling better than the last. Now for some backstory: For most of my life he has owned a Kawasaki Mule (basically a really cool golf cart) that I have spent hours with him riding around his property. Then, as I had children, he has carted them around. It is legacy, now, those hours of winding through the cow pasture. When he first got sick, I became afraid that we’d never get to ride again. This last trip though, he pitched the idea. “Who wants to go for a ride?” And, he took off out the door with my brood of children chasing after him. The trail was overgrown, like sometimes the past can become when our pain begs us to ignore it, but we trudged on taking back our legacy, our favorite pastime. My heart was so happy, so overwhelmed with gratitude that I would get this opportunity to ride the Mule again, until I looked at Poppy and he was crying. I was reminded again how pain and love go so hand in hand, how without the thief of Cancer, I would have never cried next to my grandpa, that hour mule ride a new relic in my heart. I was learning to process pain and love, together.

{Little Sonora, Fifi, and Poppy on the mule}

{Phoenix gets to cash in on his first mule ride on this last trip}

And, still, God was not done with me. I had to come back to Texas and began life again, with sick kids and fallen behind schooling, and messy house, and husband in a new job, and me, learning to thrive and be well in my heart, again. Another set of grandparents, two that I have hardly known, the adoptive parents of my birth father, had been in contact with me. They were growing older, and wanted to send me all the remaining items they had of my dad’s childhood.

Part of my special connection with my grandpa came as a result of my dad not being there. I have always longed to know him though, to know what parts of me were in him. When he died, there was so much expectancy and hope in my heart that died with him. It sharpened my faith to believe I would see him again, but it was painful. So, this last week the grandparents that I’ve never known packed up a small box of all of the remaining history of my father, and sent it to me.

I had no idea that little white box would open up all of my wounds, challenging me to be loved in the process of immense pain. The temptation is to avoid it, but to avoid pain means to avoid love. So, deep breaths for me, digging through the remnants of my past. I can remember asking my mom why my other grandparents never contacted me and she would say, “You just represent pain to them.” A failed adoption, a broken man they loved as a son, who abandoned his child to drugs and alcohol. I represent pain, and so they avoided me in a self-protective way that to me, always seemed like rejection. And, I do that same thing with God and others, closing up my heart so I can't be hurt. This box broke my heart. I read through the message spoken at my father’s funeral by friends who knew him best, and realized that though our lives were lead apart from one another, we were not so different. Here is an excerpt:

Even though this was like looking in a mirror for me, I decided that I’m breaking the cycle. I won’t numb myself with drugs, or media (my drug of choice). I won’t shut out my children to keep from hurting them with my humanity. I won’t leave my husband because I’m afraid I’m not good enough. I won’t victimize myself because life hurts. I won’t keep myself from love to avoid pain. I am going to feel all the messy parts of life so I can love deeply and with all of my heart, so I can receive love. 

Sometimes when I’m hurting I will just imagine Jesus on the cross. I will imagine how bloody love is, how we think of love as a packaged-in-plastic red heart, but love is SOFT as flesh, it is vulnerable, it hurts like hell, yet, the propensity to experience it is what sets us free. Jesus paid the highest price for us to experience love, in all of its goodness, in all of its perfection, but without pain, without the cross, love is living behind a veil. I think of Mary who had the greatest privilege of birthing Jesus, knowing Jesus in such an intimate way, how she held this babe in her arms, her destiny and his being prophesied:

33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Luke 2:34-35

I want to be brave like Mary, embracing love with the inevitable promise of pain. She was knelt at the cross at his brutal death, not missing a moment of her soul being pierced, as she loved him so. I know a lot of believers who think after the resurrection, life gets easy, but I haven't seen much evidence of this. Instead, I see redemption, which only comes as a result of God's goodness meeting our mess. 

Will you let Him see your mess? 

{Stephen, circa 1986}

This man, I don’t even know him. But, one day I will. For now, I’m just going to cry a lot, cry at what might have been, but also, what is still to come because at the very end of his life, he accepted that no matter the mess he made of his life, God loved him anyway. I'm going to cry because my grandpa was rushed to the hospital this morning, cry for the billionth time because grief over cancer is like being dragged through the mud behind a wagon. It hurts, and so I soften my heart before God. He loves me. He loves you, too. And, if you want to experience the reckless love of God, you’re going to feel the weight of your humanity, the weight of the cross, the promise of death being broken in its entirety, and love conquering all. Then, you have to believe it without all of your heart, that death is done for, and new life has come (even when the three days leading up to resurrection feels like forever). That is the gospel, and you don’t just receive it like a cushy Jesus moving into your heart as the salvation prayer implies. No, you live it. And, it’s the hardest, most beautiful process you’ll ever embrace.