A Glass of Wine, A Hot Bath, And....

I've spent many, many nights in the bathtub basically hiding out. I have always like to read books and I usually spend reading nights in a hot bathtub with a glass of wine and sometimes the occasional beer and read my way into a different world, time, era, place. I have spent many, many a night in a hot bath crying and complaining, trying to figure out who to talk to about my heart, and hiding from those around me. I have read books from murder mysteries to fantasy wildness, to trying to find a book that the author could tell me, relate to me, bring to me the exact words that describe what I am feeling and who I am becoming, with very little luck by the way. Then in September sometime, my daughter bought The Shack, and in October/November (I think), I took up reading again in my hot bath, and this is the book where I started. It was what I desired; a book that the author, wrote about an encounter post a tragic event in the main characters life. The description, details, and emotions that poured from the author's hand to the page expressed and delivered something that I related to immediately. He brought to life a picture of what I needed, wanted, longed for in the future, and it brought something that I had been looking for.. no not answers. I finished The Shack, not as quickly as my daughter wanted. Then hovered around trying to find something else, something that would bring more detail and life to the place that I am living in, once again without luck.
After a couple months and searching and giving up on more to read, I was watching something and there was an author talking about a book she had finished, Choosing to SEE. I couldn't buy the book fast enough, which was much harder than you would think and finally found it at a poodunct Walmart, the last one on the shelf. I knew the story or at least part of the story from TV and news media but I only knew a little bit of the story. I bought this book writen by Mary Beth Chapman and I knew some of the story of the Chapman family. I knew that their daughter, age 5, was struck by a car in their driveway, a car being driven by their 17 yr old son, and I knew that their daughter was lost shortly after being admitted to the hospital. That's what I knew, that's really all I knew, what I found out was the whole story. This mother of a family of 6 children and wife of a well known Christian singer, Steven Curtis Chapman, wrote about their life starting with their daughter, about the life that they lost, and about the way she felt then, during, and now. So, I am plagerizing today. I am taking parts and pieces of this mother's words that I relate to, the moments in time that she is in and going through, so I plagerize.

"When people as how we are doing, the first thing I always say is 'I want Maria back. I want my son Will Franklin not to have this as a chapter in his story. I want my childrent to be healthy, my family secure. I don't really care whose life has been touched or changed because of our loss!' That is the heart of a mother who lost a daughter and is determined not to lose another child."
I wish I could be this open, this true to people when they ask me how I am I could tell them exactly the way I feel, exactly like these words.
"The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise." Jerry Sittser - quote picked by Mary Beth Chapman at the beginning of a chapter.
I don't like this statement, altho over the past 10 months I believe it to be true, even tho I avoid the fact that I am running ever so desperately further into the darkness by chasing the sunrise to the west. Why? Because I can see a little bit of light left and am comfortable seeing that glimmer of setting sunlight to stay out of the dark chasing me from behind.
"Maria, I'm sad. Brokenhearted and wounded. You are momentarily gone from me, taken without notice, way too soon for my liking. Mommy has been so sad. I know you wouldn't want me to be but I long for the way things were and wonder why they have to be the way they are."
I say these words to Kaleb and Thad probably daily and I say them under my breath, alone at home or in the car going somewhere, sitting at the cemetary between them, and this is not to my liking.
"..this grief I can't express is deeply personal and isolating. I makes me very sad. Sometimes I can't breathe it hurts so bad. Everybody has loved on me, but the tears still come."
"Sometimes it is 10 steps forward and 5 steps back, and sometimes it is one stip forward and twenty steps back, but I'm moving..."
"Maria's birthday. I honestly don't know what to write or what to say. I can think of all the "right things to say, like, "I'm thankful for the years I had with Maria." That is a true statement, but I still want more years with her. I've heard thinks like, "She wasn't mine to begin with." That is a true statement as well. She belongs to God. He gave her to me so that I could be her mommy. But I still want to be her mommy...I wasn't prepared to give her back to the One who gave her to me."
I can say with all my heart these are thoughts, feelings, and yes words that I have felt and/or heard. And this mother, Mary Beth, gave those moments words, something that has been a relief to me because I have no way to say these things yet and I didn't know how to make them come out in a clear thought.
"Here is what I feel as this day starts out. Sad beyond sad that she isn't here. Angry and mad that this had to happen. Confused and bewildered that it had to involve Maria's big brother, who absolutely adored her. Paralyzing fear that I won't be able to pull through the pain and be able to completely let her go. Speechless to know how to grieve my baby girl... "
I read this last night and marked it, why? This was written on My 21, 2009, the 1 yr date of Maria's passing and in complete fear of reaching this date in my life, I look to these words to find out what to expect. Not that this life is the same as the Chapman's life, but someone who is giving words to what she is feeling, where she was at and what she was seeing. I feel speechless beyond words most days, and with this date coming without warning, in my opinion, this date is coming without warning, I find myself trying to make the days longer.
"I told someone yesterday that I feel as though I'm not just walking through a desert right now...I'm wandering in it with no clear path in front of me. It is a very desperate place to be, and on lots of days I'm strong on the outside but a mess on the inside."
I've actually wrote about this type of feeling, being in a desert, alone and not seeing a path of where to go next, this statement speaks more than mounds - it speaks the truth of the place where I see myself walking.
"God is either a truth of a lie. Everything He has said and promised is either 100 percent true, or it is lie after lie after lie."
There's more to this beginning of the paragraph, but these few statements say everything that means anything. It is not a middle ground (altho that would be where I'd like God to be), He is either one or the other. Somedays He is 100% truth and other days, on the bad bad days, He seems to me 100% lies. What I have been through lately is deciphering what 'man' says God says, that's actually how 'we' believe we are led by 'man'. What I am learning, and I hope it is God showing me and not just me, is that God is 100% truth even tho I don't like it (which I don't) and somewhere I'm going to not just know this I'm going to believe it.
"Lord, I trust you...help my unbelief. That is where I am, slowly, slowly wallowing through this complex journey God has set before us.."
I have this unbelief, I guess it goes back to the statement above; my hope is that I am not the one directly my steps and God is getting me through my unbelief, even if it is ever so slowly.

I don't have permission to share these quotes that why I stated I was plagerizing at the beginning. I am glad, even through tears in the bathtub, that I bought this book even though in essence I thought I knew the story. I'm hopeful that this desert will end up showing a path and that knowing God is 100% truth will become more than a knowledge but a real truth again. I am desperate to know that someday, at some time later in this journey, my unbelief will be undone. I have thought about thanking Mary Beth for sharing this heartbreaking journey, I haven't but I've thought about it. I hope that she knows that her words have said things that my heart feels and her hope 2 years later is helping me, even though I'd like to deny it. So thank you Mary Beth Chapman for bringing life to heartbreak, life to feeling and words to express the heartbreak that a mother feels. Thank you for letting me know that my unbelief is ok and someday its going to fade and be replaced and God knows when that will happen and He's here with me and my family. Thank you for bringing truth to sadness and grief and that even tho I will never get over this I will get through it.

A glass of wine, a hot bath and life, that's where I'm at, where I can hide, where I'm learning about this journey.