Every day there are reminders that Kari is not here with me. Sometimes they are hard reminders and other times, like today, they are beautiful reminders of how she gave so much when she was here and continued to give when she no longer needed her body as she was an organ donor.
As I filled out some paperwork today, it hit my heart differently this time. I'm so proud of Kari. The girls and I have had talks about being an organ donor and Kari and I had talked of it and she had been very clear that she wanted to help others if something happened to her. And she did.
These are not conversations you always think of having with your teens, but they are important. Don't be afraid to have hard conversations with your teens.
I never would have expected to ever be holding these papers in my hand. I never would have expected to have had to make that decision because I never would have dreamed I would outlive my daughter.
Trusting God with our children is so hard, especially when we pray for something that doesn't come because then we are left with trusting His heart over our circumstances. Kari loved Jesus. She always had this ability to make your heart smile. When Kari and I went to Texas for two weeks and stayed at the Ronald Mcdonald House for the Children's Cook Hospital to have extensive testing done for her rising seizures, she would pray every day and ask God to heal her. She always ended it with, "even if You don't God, I always love you." She would fall asleep and I would pray and pray that God would heal her. My faith wasn't as strong as hers...I didn't want there to be an "even if"...I just wanted her healed. I felt like she had already had a difficult start and I just wanted her life to be beautiful from the moment we adopted her until forever.
We had so many people praying for her and had such huge support from family and friends. Kari loved every one of them and held them close to her heart always. When we left the hospital two weeks later, we still didn't have good answers. We had a lot of "theories" and a lot of doctor appointments ahead but there didn't appear to be good answers to really hard questions. She was having grand mal seizures every day sometimes several times a day and I don't know if you have ever seen one, but when your child has one, it can cripple you with fear. Instead, I saw her sisters and her family learn how to help her through them. They learned how to stay calm in the middle of them, how to roll her to her side, time her seizures, try and find something soft to put under her head, and talk gently to her until it was over. I saw her sisters learn how to go on about their day after witnessing their sister have repeated and significant seizures. It affected the whole family in such a deep way.
Our family grew in many ways during that time...some of us grew closer and stronger and others grew apart, perhaps unable to handle all the things that were now a part of our daily life. Kari's seizures began to come under control only for her rages to replace them. The rages were harder to handle and process. I saw her sisters quickly learn how to remove their younger sisters from danger when Kari would explode. I also saw them develop some fear and anxiety because they never knew when she would explode. It would be instant and fierce when it did happen. During much of this time, it was just the girls and I handling it and trying so desperately to hold it all together through some of the hardest times as their dad was in rehab during much of this. I cannot tell you how many tears I cried or how I would lay on the floor at night, completely prostrate before God, begging Him to fix it all...my marriage, my daughter, my family...and to be honest, everything I prayed for did not go as I wanted it to.
I divorced my husband, my Kari girl began rotating in and out of inpatient facilities and I went to work full time, which changed the environment for my girls drastically as I was no longer there with them throughout the day. I wrestled with all of these things for so long because I felt like such a failure in pretty much every area. I felt like if I had been able to stay at home as a stay-at-home mom (like I felt I was called to do), Kari would not have had to live in the inpatient, but it simply wasn't safe for her without me being able to be there 100 % of the time...it wasn't really safe even when I was there.
But this isn't a sad blog today....because I see things differently now. I see my divorce as protection from many things that were going on that just weren't good or safe for my family. I see the years the girls and I had struggled with it being just us as something that deepened the relationship I have with each of them. We are not perfect by any means, but we love each other fiercely and deeply. After MANY DIFFERENT inpatient facilities, God brought us to CountryLane and it became a home for Kari and they loved her like her own family and I loved them for that. My goal was always to bring Kari home and then right when we were SO CLOSE to her coming back home, God took her home.
They say that everything happens for a reason...I believe that to be true because I believe in a Sovereign God. I know God could have healed Kari. I know He could have taken all of her seizures away, rages away, mental illness...all of it could have been gone with one word from Him. And I don't understand why that couldn't have become part of our story....but then I think of Kari being in Heaven for over a year now and everything she has experienced since going home. I think my limited knowledge of Heaven gives me those moments of wishing she was still here because, in reality, I want her there more than anything else. She is exactly where we pray our children to go when they die.
To Heaven.
And she is there because SHE CHOSE to make Christ her King. She didn't wait until she was grown to make that decision, if she had done that, she wouldn't be in Heaven right now. She didn't wait for God to heal her to serve Him and make Him Lord....she made Him her King when she was just a child and then she loved Him even when everything was a hot mess in her world. She lived out her "Even if" all the way home. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can imagine her being escorted to Heaven by angels ( I don't know if that's how it works or if she was instantly in front of Jesus) but I imagine they escort her there and she is giggling in her beautiful way and then...there He is. Her King. I imagine her running to Him with full-on Kari joy and throwing herself in His arms and being wrapped in His arms. I can almost hear His laughter as He swoops her up. I can see her and Him sitting together and talking as she talks to Him about each of the people she loves. I can see His light all around her, see her stunning blue eyes lit up with the sheer beauty of fully understanding just how loved and valued she is. That was something she always struggled with and I know now that she knows more than any of us here can ever understand.
Through all of this God was faithful.
He didn't ignore my prayers.
You see, as a follower of Christ we look at life differently and we have the Holy Spirit give us insight into things that otherwise we just could not understand. It doesn't mean we don't have really hard conversations with God. Believe me, I have wrestled with God so many times and have fought against His way versus my way in a ferocious way at times. It doesn't mean we are "super-spiritual" and just always sees things through the eyes of God. We don't.
We are a messy and imperfect family. Full of downfalls, messy decisions, poor choices, love, forgiveness, ups and downs, a flow of joy and grief all wrapped up together to create our family.
Just like all of you.
Just like the people we read about in the Bible.
I think that is part of the beauty of this journey here. Learning to see the value in all the chapters of your story and in all the people involved. Learning to surrender your own plans for His, your dreams for your children for His plans for them, and learning to see those who played a role in your darkest chapters as deeply valuable to your own growth. This life isn't easy for any of us. Sometimes there are parts of it that I want to kick and scream against, but I am slowly learning that God is in every part. I know some people will disagree with this next statement and that's ok because it's just my opinion :) But I believe that God was active and engaged in my divorce....did He desire that for us? No. But He allows certain things for our protection. Things that at first can seem so unbearable. I believe that God was active and engaged in Kari going home when she did.
We can't just believe in God when everything goes well in our life.
We can't just believe in God when every time we pray, He answers just what we prayed for. The Hope of Christ is not contingent upon my circumstances.
Romans 8:24-28 have been verses that I have been able to stand rooted in when my own knees would not hold me up anymore and the very earth I stood on seemed to be shaking. His Word is firm and steady so I cling to it even now.
These verses say:
"For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."NIV
I guess tonight my heart was just heavy with these words and memories. I often hear people say they could never handle one thing or another and the truth is yes you can. By the grace of God, by the strength of the Holy Spirit within you...YES, YOU CAN. I bet you have already walked through things that you never would have wanted or thought you could make it through....because that's just life on the wrong side of the garden if you will.
Walking through all of these hard things has strengthened a resolve deep within my spirit in the knowledge that no man (and no situation) can ever take away from me.
The knowledge that my God is faithful.
He is worthy to be praised.
He will not ever abandon me.
He is active in all parts of my life.
His ways are not like mine, and that's a good thing.
I still have so much to learn about life and faith and loving brave. I'm so grateful for this journey though. There is a supernatural beauty that comes from loving brave in a cruel and hard world that is determined to strip you of hope, but instead, you are able to stare that enemy straight in the eye and bravely hold up the light of truth, wrapped up in the purest form of authentic love that comes from living a life interwoven with joy and grief...and you declare loud and clear for all to hear, " My God Reigns!"
