A Path in the Wilderness

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We took a rare detour this weekend. Especially rare for this time of year when all is crazy, Christmas-busy and sing-y. We went to Round Top, a little town West of Houston but a world away, known for it's antiques, pie and eccentricities. We played music with friends then rented a little farm house for the night. We all slept in, then woke to fresh coffee and quiche (thanks Paula) and after a few rounds of Go Fish, we decided to take a walk, family style.

The farmhouse is actually on a cattle ranch, cattle who except for the occasional bleeting and lowing (to my delight, cow's actually do "low") stay mostly out of sight. We decided to go looking for them. Sydney is, afterall, a city child and we thought it would be good for us all to take a pastoral walk through nature. We trekked over the dirt road and down the hill toward a little pond. We followed the trail arund the house then back into a patch of wildy green trees and vines behind the house, where we paused.

"I've never been to a real forest before!" Sydney exclaimed as we tentatively entered the cool, dark clearing. There was a path, not much of one, but path enough to get us through to the other side.


We continued to wind our way through the "forest", sticking tightly to the path, each of us secretly trying to appear comfortable with this suddenly ubiquitous "nature". We emerged from the woods a few hundred yards from where the cows had been hiding. We kept our distance but exchanged a few rounds of "Moooooo!" before heading back to the house.


On the way home, just as I10 becomes Houston, where all traces of "country" are gone and the big city sprawl unfurls it's concrete and glass fanfare, Matt said:

"How you and Lisa* found eachother, that was important. You should talk about that."

"It wasn't a big deal, really." I replied.

"No, it was. You should talk about it."

It did so happen that I met a lovely, smart, though wounded young woman at a coffee house just over a year ago. I wasn't really in the market for meeting a friend. In fact I had decided to sit in a coffeeshop and "write". Because I was trying to make time for "writing" and it seemed that was the sort of thing "writers" do. I get bored easily so I downed my latte, stared at my blinking cursor and started to sweat.

Lisa arrived just in time. She sat down beside me and laid her book on the table. It was a guidebook. For Houston.

"They make guidebooks for Houston?" I said aloud. Her reply revealed an accent, was it Australian? English? Soon enough we were chatting away.

Lisa is married, from South Africa, and hoping to start a family soon with her husband, who's job has moved them all over the world. Before Houston they lived in India, before India, Iran- where they hosted a house church in their apartment. They baptized new believers in the bathtub while the secret police posted cameras outside their building and followed them to and from work. I knew right away I liked Lisa.

We started talking about children and pregnancy. Lisa didn't have children yet,or so I gathered from our conversation, so I described a few things about pregnancy and post partum that I assumed would be new to her. She nodded and affirmed, adding anecdotes of her own like she'd been there. After another round of coffees she told me about her son, Daniel. She became pregnant in India, and all seemed fine until an ultrasound revealed Daniel had a rare heart defect. She delivered normally, right on schedule, and Daniel was absolutely beautiful. Lisa and her husband held him every second of his life, until his little heart finally stopped struggling. He lived only a day and a half. I am not sure why Lisa chose to share her story with me, but at the moment she did I felt as if I held something very precious and very important in my hands. We continued to talk, exchanged numbers and promised to get together again soon.

Lisa and her husband soon joined Ecclesia Church, where we worked, and I saw her nearly every Sunday. My husband and I were hoping for another child too, so we talked about that from time to time.

About halfway through the year two things happened. One- Lisa decided to become a chaplain at the Children's hospital and soon began a training program. Soon after that she became pregnant with twins. We celebrated. I think I may have actually jumped for joy . First because I thanked God for her courage to use the unimaginable pain she's endured to help counsel and comfort others in similar situations. Then because her dream of motherhood endured, and finally, after so much heartbreak she'd become pregnant again. I think she is remarkably brave, and I told her so.

A few months later I found myself jumping for joy again, only this time it was when I told Lisa that I was pregnant myself. It'd had been almost two years of disappointment, and I hadn't even told my mother yet. But somehow I wanted Lisa to have this precious information. I coveted her prayers. I told her that I was due for an ultrasound the following morning and would let her know what I learned.

If you read my last blog entry you know that the news I got was not good. In fact it was bad. The kind of bad news that cannot, no matter how hard you try to spin it, be seen as anything other than bad news.

Lisa was the first person I told. I'm not even sure why. I just knew my pain, and my story - my story as it was unfolding- would be safe in her hands.

A week or so later my husband and I found ourselves in a hospital room - a room in the same hospital- and same wing- where I had our daughter by C-section five years earlier. But this time we were waiting for a different kind of surgery. They hooked me up to an IV, put me in one of those awful paper gowns, charged my credit card an obscene amount of money (our deductible) and told me to wait.

We waited for what seemed like hours. I think it was maybe two. Then there was a knock on the door- it was Lisa. Her hospital ID tag jangled at her neck and her black sweater did little to hide her growing belly. I don't even know how she found us. I can't remember ever being so happy to see someone. She came with cookies and coffee for Matt, sat down beside us and began to talk. We talked about the weather, about her upcoming trip to South Africa. We talked a little bit about the surgery ahead of me, but mostly we just sat together.

Another hour flew by and the nurse came to get me for surgery. Before I knew it I was saying good bye to Lisa and my husband, then waking up in a recovery room. In the days and weeks that followed Lisa checked in on me by phone and text. About a week or so after the surgery we met at my favorite teahouse. I asked her about Daniel. I asked her questions I had never thought to ask before, but were suddenly very important to me. Where did she think he was? Did she believe he was in heaven? What did she think heaven is like? We cried together. I left the teahouse with a little more peace. Then later I marveled at that precious thing I held in my hands. The important thing I'd been trusted with. Somehow Lisa's pain helped her find her way to me in that coffeehouse over a year ago. And now her pain - and the beauty God is making from it- was helping me to find a way through the wilderness of my own pain.

We don't share pain with one another because we are afraid we will be rejected. Grief can be scary. What if you do open up to someone and that person changes the subject, or avoids you- backing away slowly, as if you're a wounded animal about to pounce. Which you might be.

Jesus was rejected. He still is. Yet his pain- the pain he endured on our behalf- is no less significant. His work is no less significant. In fact his work and his pain are utterly significant because it means that we don't suffer alone. And we don't suffer for nothing.

Your pain matters. It matters to God, to you, and it matters to your fellow human beings. We're all pilgrims out here. No matter how well we hide it, we are all wandering at times, scared, trying to find a foothold, a path, and we are all hurting.

You may share your story and it may be rejected. That's o.k. Keep sharing . Someone who needs to will hear you, really hear you, and it may help them heal. Your story may be just the thing that person needs to see that the woods ahead can be crossed because of the footpath you've already made through them.

"See, I am doing something new. I am making a way in the wilderness."--Isaiah 43:19



*Lisa is not really her name.

** Notice the "forest" to the left, just beyond the gate.