Take a Walk

I have read more books in the last year than ever before, even in college. All in search of one thing...answers. I was a fool to think that any of them would give me even one. But I will say that they have given me new ways to look at what my family has experienced and my 'long distance' relationship with Sutton. They have also affirmed that we are not alone in our journey. But it's a double-edged sword. If you read a book about loss you are likely to feel sad because someone else suffered or because they tell you they never 'healed' or it took so long to find a path forward. But no one writes a book about loss with out some small uplifting moment or story during their struggle, and these are what give you hope or maybe even faith. It is ALWAYS the little things.

But there is a book worth mentioning. It was a wonderful friend who recommended the book, "The Color of Rain", by Michael & Gina Spehn. Although their story begins with the loss of a spouse and not a child, I could relate to so many things that they wrote. There is an aspect about this book that has been prevalent in most of the others I have read. It speaks A LOT about faith and their relationship with God.

I would like to preface the rest of this entry with a little bit about my beliefs. I feel that if you believe in God it is a personal relationship. I have no expressed opinion as to whether a believer should attend church or if they should have...shall we say 'credentials' to pray. It's your relationship and you must do whatever is comfortable to you. But I believe it's a relationship. I also believe that reading scripture or attending church on Sundays is never considered 'proof' that you have a relationship or that you are a good person.

So with that out of the way I would say that I believe in God with all that I am and always have, with a side of cynicism. I'm not going to go too deep. But let me try to lay this out for you without going into my entire history...I'm gonna stick to why my faith is shaken and thinking 'what the heck do I do now?'

The first is obvious. My faith was shaken the day my son died. I had, and I think I will always have, the same questions. Why my son? Why did he suffer if you were going to take him? Why would you give me children if I wasn't going to be able to see them grow? What happened to the word merciless? If there were soo many prayers, why weren't they enough/answered? Why are you allowing others to add to our struggle? There are a lot more, but you get the gist of what I'm questioning. I was beginning to get mad. In the end, I knew the answer...but wasn't buying it.

So for the most part I kind of quit praying like i usually do. I began praying for two things only in the beginning. I asked God to take care of Sutton and let him know how much I love him. The second thing I prayed for was a sign, any sign, that my son knew how much I love him. This is something I still do. It took me awhile to pray about other things, but I did. I prayed that I would be a good mom to Cooper to help him through this and a good wife to Aaron to do the same. But I stopped praying for strength or really any other kind of support. I also didn't pray for anyone else unless things were really, really bad.

So at a time that a believer should be relying on God more than ever, I left the relationship as is and somewhat dormant. And I knew why. Because among the other million thoughts and feelings I was having I knew that the answer to most all of it was one word - faith. But at the time and even now I kind of felt like that was a synonym for 'deal with it'.

I eventually asked myself 'what's next?'. And I didn't have a clue, can't really say I do now. All I know is that I was really tired of having the same outlook and feeling the same way every day. I mean, I was constantly dealing with the fact that I was a hot mess depending upon the hour of the day and so many areas of my life had changed as well as my relationships. But last month I had one of Oprah's 'aha' moments. It didn't unlock any great secret, but it gave me a little bit of courage to start dealing with some of the craziness constantly swirling around me. The book uses the baseball term 'take a walk'. It suggests that choosing to swing at everything that comes at you may not be the way to go. Maybe if you 'walk', your life can be a little simpler or easier...so that's what I'm doing.

Let's take my last entry for example - I opened the door for a fantastic relationship with someone I cherish which is something I plan to do more of, ball one.

I also did something I never thought about doing, but am proud that I did. I started letting go of certain things I can't change, things that occupied my time in a negative way. Doing this has given me more of an opportunity to work on 'the better version' rather than wasting time. Let me tell you this is no small feat, but has been tremendously helpful towards improving the quality of my smile, ball two!

I am beginning to focus on me a bit. My life is so different than two years ago or really how I ever imagined it. I want to figure out what I want, what will help keep that smile on my face, and continue to be my authentic self, ball three.

While doing this I thought to myself that I hadn't reached out to God, I wasn't making him a bigger part of my life and was able to accomplish things I never even thought possible six months ago. But I have to remind myself that God doesn't make things happen, he's there to lean on while you go through it....right?

I think a lot about my life, my relationship with God and how the two relate. This is a step in the right direction, I mean before I never gave it much thought because I was so consumed with other emotions and I was a bit upset with Him to put it lightly. But I dialed his number the other day and said, "hey, I'm back and I'm tryin'. I think this is going to be a long journey and I'm not sure where I'm going to end up, but I'm in motion and working on yet another relationship, ball four.

So sticking with the analogy, I may get thrown out at second but at least I got on base. And if I have to take another walk in order to get in the game I have the patience and the time.