eleven

Better.

Heart Lessons

If, like me, eleven has always been a meaningful number to you, it’s safe to assume that 2022 should be a banner year. Like a once-in-a-lifetime year! I turned 47 (totaling 11), D turned 11, and his school bus number at his new school, in a new town was 11. I also founded Building 22 this year; DOUBLY meaningful. So all signs point to the perfect intersection of dreams fulfilled, right?

If you remember back in March, I shared that my word for 2022 was Poppy. She represented resurrection and healing to me, and I’d had that word confirmed in the most miraculous way via a sweet red-haired doll. So here we go! Hearts healed! Promises awakened! What followed was death after death, loss after loss; decades-long friendship gone, partnership vanished, romantic love lost in the most dramatic way, community dissolved. My heart. Oh, my heart. How it hurt.

I’d cry out from my knees on the floor to my Father, asking Him over and over why healing evaded me; why I couldn’t come out from under this. I’d throw myself into more prayer and worship, thinking gratitude might offset it. I spoke against any lies I might have believed out of my pain. I repented for not having expectant hope that things would get better. I saw my therapist and my doctor. And still, the constant ache. I kept comparing it to having lost my father and marriage, and by all measures, this pain was far worse. It was taking me out in an unrelenting fashion. I didn’t recognize myself. Joy was totally gone and no manner of ‘beauty-for-ashes’ could convince me that it would ever be back.

Then, on December 9, something happened. Bochy’s Place, the safehouse and recovery program that I’m working with in preparation for Building 22, hired a new team therapist. As part of her early work, she is completing testing on both our residents and staff. On the other side of a Zoom call on that Friday, Dr. Juli reviewed how I think, make decisions, and receive and express love. I nodded knowingly as she reviewed the first 2 categories. All seemed in line with the years of therapy and personal work I’d done to understand myself a bit more. Then, she started reviewing the last category; affection. The first words out of her mouth had me wide-eyed. Then she kept going. I began laughing. No more nodding. ‘This just can’t be right. This quite literally counters almost every interaction I have with my close relationships. I’ve never acted this way.’ As a follow-up, she asked me how I interact with my son, D. Pregnant pause. ‘Well, definitely more in line with your assessment.’ Then I began rethinking what had caused me pain in my last romantic relationship, and how I had been so very confused by my feelings. Perhaps there was some meat to the results.

Following my normal protocol, I took my confusion to God. Over the next couple of weeks, not only did the pain not subside, it intensified. Christmas came and my grief reached a fever pitch. How could advent, the ultimate season of hope, bring me nothing but torment and heartache? What sort of ungrateful, damaged person acts like this? On the 26th, as I prepared to climb into bed early and read the book gathering dust on my nightstand, I felt His soft, kind prompting. He wanted to talk.

And I believed Him. For the first time this year, I knew that the pain did not point to my dysfunction. I felt the ache leave and the tears flowed differently; a tributary of healing and gratitude that finally knew that she’d been created for and from big love. That lingering feelings weren’t failures. I knew that little Poppy was made in the image of her Father, and that was exactly who He’d always wanted and planned for her to be. And while I appreciated this new awareness, I was, in no way, prepared to ask for 2023’s word. Yet, I heard it anyway. Better. Alongside Ephesians 3:20, God had also given me John 11:11 (those blasted elevens again!) as a foundation for my year of resurrection. For the hundredth time this year, I felt prompted to read it:

“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

John 11:11 NIV

And I sensed ‘Keep reading.’

“Lord, if he is sleeping, he will soon get better!”

John 11:12 NLT

It doesn’t end with resurrection, nor does it go directly to ‘better’. There is a gap. I imagine what Lazarus’s days following that dramatic tomb exit were like. The stench. The stiff limbs. The emotional upheaval. It couldn’t have been pretty. And what must precede a resurrection? Gethsemane tells us that even Jesus, the gold standard of righteous suffering, asked that His death be taken from Him. Jesus. There is pain before, during and after the resurrection. What seems like a simple transition from 11 to 12 is not a numerical unit of measurement. It’s a deep, slow departure, a painful reemergence, and eventually, something resembling healing.

But as I pondered the loss of this last year, in contrast to what I originally imagined as a glorious Venus-worthy rising, I simply heard ‘Yes, but what remains?’. Dr. Steve Bonenberger says it this way:

Amidst the rubble and smoldering embers we usually see the valiant fist of the survivor materialize for the very first time. Is this emotional awareness my superpower? Who knows. I do know that after months of unbelievable pain, simply coming into alignment with what He is saying has brought such peace. And the year feels more complete, knowing that Poppy doesn’t carry the weight of a massive promise, but is definitely the beginning of something to come. Something better.

Eleven

Heart Lessons

About 20 years ago, I started noticing an odd pattern. I was seeing 11:11 everywhere; clocks, receipts, license plates, you name it. It kind of freaked me out until I asked some friends about it and they simply asked ‘Well, what does God say about it?’. I didn’t sense anything specific, but over the next decade, I came to know it as a simple nod from God that He was there, and that He was ordering things. It makes sense that He would do that with numbers, as I am a lover of them.

And as my Creator, He knows what might get my attention.

With that context, let’s jump to 2019. It’s late in the year, I’ve sold my home and am crashing with a friend until I determine next steps, and I start sensing that I should visit a church in Mansfield. It’s not entirely random, as the word ‘Mansfield’ had been popping into my mind for a couple of years. Without knowing what it meant or really anything about the city, I’d just jot it down and hope that clarity would come. In a conversation with a friend, she mentioned a new church that she was hoping to start attending, but was disappointed that it was so far away. The location was, you guessed it: Mansfield. Where He drops breadcrumbs, I follow. So, every-other week, when my son was with his father, I’d make the thirty-mile trek to-and-from the high school where this church was meeting. No goosebumps. No providential encounters. I’d drive aimlessly around the town after church, looking for some indication as to why I was here. This went on for several months, screaming fits on the return trip most weeks, until, on one road trip back, I heard ‘You’re moving to Mansfield.’ And so began an Enneagram 1 style frantic planning session to find suitable schools, neighborhoods, look at viability for my newly formed decorating business, ALL the things. And then, in March, everything came to a screeching halt. The world went into a Covid-driven lockdown. Assuming this meant our plans were also pausing, I took a deep breath and laid back. ‘You’re still moving to Mansfield. The weekend after Memorial Day.’ So, we moved. Mid-quarantine, unable to meet neighbors or attend church. With zero clue why we were here, everything in me ached for some sense of understanding. The ONLY thing I had to cling to was knowing I’d heard Him.

Some months later, church reopened and desperate for human interaction and connection to locals, I dove into serving. As we discussed where I might want to serve, the advising pastor asked in what capacity I’d served before and suggested they could definitely use me on the media team. So we began showing up at 5:45am most Sundays to unload the trailer, roll everything into the high school, set it up, serve, and pack everything back up. The drummer, T, befriended my son and enlisted him to help him set up week after week. As I came to know him, he shared that he was in end-stage renal failure, and on the kidney transplant list. A fleeting thought entered my mind. ‘Huh, wonder if that’s why God moved us here?’. A couple more months went by and life changed.

On December 30, 2010, on my son’s 10th birthday, I ended up in the ER. It was the perfect end to a truly terrible night of waiting in the rain for our Uber, after being unable to restart my car at the drive-in. After that hours’ long ordeal and us falling exhausted into our beds, I awoke with stabbing pain like I’d never had before. Cue another Uber ride to the ER, where they determined I had kidney stones. While unpleasant, not terribly surprising, as I’d failed miserably at managing my physical health after my divorce in 2017. I heard God’s sweet voice twice that evening, once in the ER and again at home at 4am. ‘This is not at all what I have for you, Kerri. I have so much planned for you that will not happen if you do not get healthy.’ And so began a year-long journey of getting control of my health.

6 months into that journey, the conversation again resumed with T regarding his need for a kidney transplant. This time, it wasn’t a ‘Huh, I wonder….’ thought. It was ‘Yeah, I’m supposed to do this.’ The odds of being a match were a fraction of a percent, but I just knew. The process started pretty smoothly. I was a viable candidate, then approved as a tissue match, but then further testing revealed some heart abnormalities. Follow-up EKG, more heart abnormalities. First stress test, same result. And while I fumbled over my testing, T became increasingly ill. He was in and out of the hospital with blood toxicity and erratic blood sugar. After telling me that he was tired of this years’ long journey and couldn’t move forward, I went on a very long walk and leaned over the guardrail of the trail, crying uncontrollably, unable to catch my breath. All this and now he’s just going to let himself die? Just like that? At just that moment, a friend called and calmed me with her words. ‘Kerri, you aren’t here for no reason. Go home, and read over your prayer journals. I think you’ll find the answers you need.’ For the next 4 hours, I culled through years of journaling. And, as she suggested, found that God had been speaking to me about this for years, letting me know that I needed to get healthy to save his life.

So while nothing pointed to this happening, I was emboldened. It had been written.

He reluctantly decided to continue forward. However, the process still wasn’t smooth from there. Another failed stress test led to a cardiologist referral. Several weeks later, I had the all-clear from cardiology, and in August we received confirmation that I was his approved living donor. But now we had a new hurdle. The transplant hospital was requiring that T get a Covid vaccination to even be considered for surgery. Only a year prior, he’d almost died from Covid. Unaware of his DNR order, his parents ordered doctors to resuscitate him after he coded. So the idea of intentionally injecting the serum into his compromised body was earth-shattering. But what option did he have? His life literally hung in the balance. Given the certainty of death with no surgery, he conceded. As expected, his body reacted horribly and his health continued to decline. But unexpectedly, one October day, the clinic called. It was time to confirm the transplant date.

November 11, 2021.

11/11. A .2% chance of it falling on that date. The minuscule chance that I’d be a match. The move. The church. The ER visit. All the delays and tears. I could palpably feel God smiling.

There it was. Order.

Did absolute order follow that providential 11/11 date? No. The fallout after the euphoric faith-filled high was nothing short of a complete crash landing. I suffered from what I now know is a post-surgical ‘postpartum’ of sorts, and I struggled emotionally. The very real need to secure paying work after I’d put life on pause for several months hit me like a ton of bricks. And relationally, dreams I’d held close began to crumble, and I felt alone, rejected, and completely heartbroken. It was then that He began speaking to me about another bold move.

Why does He do that? Why, when you are at rock bottom, does He ask big things of you? Why was it after my divorce that He began speaking so clearly and asking me to step out and do scary things? Is He that mean? The kind of man who kicks you while you are down? The answer is no. There is no kinder being anywhere. Psalms 34 tells us that He is close to the brokenhearted. There is something tender about those moments with Him, where I truly believe we just hear Him differently. And when are you ever more motivated to trust Him than when you have nothing to lose and everything to gain? When I think of a life of faith, I often think of The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. He is a heavenly being. He is holy. Isaiah 55 tells us that His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. Try as we may, we cannot comprehend Him. Although we strive to become more and more like Him, there is no ‘arriving’ on this side of heaven.

Thy kingdom come. The goal is to encounter heaven, by encountering Him. But this invasion of heaven on earth creates a tension that is uncomfortable for most because we are earthly beings. And just when you find yourself growing the slightest bit comfortable, here comes an increased level of exposure to heavenly things.

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Thy will. Not MY will. Again, the tension. Oh, the tension.

Give us this day our daily bread. He has committed to taking care of us today, and we are instructed not to worry about tomorrow. How’s that for turning over control.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. The forgiveness of others comes BEFORE the extension of forgiveness. Which wars against every human need to exact justice so that balance is achieved.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. If we have subscribed to the truth of this prayer thus far, that His thinking far exceeds ours, then we do not get to understand every single evil from which He might choose to deliver us. This means trusting that He is leading us towards good, even if we do not understand the loss.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. The glory of every outcome is His. And solely His.

So here I am, just over 10 months post-op. Physically, I’m doing fine. We’ve moved yet again at His urging, on to another adventure into the complete unknown. Emotionally, there is much that was left undone in Mansfield. I took big leaps with my heart and had big hopes that were not realized. Very, very real heartache and many tears. There is so much that I simply do not understand; things that I thought were part of His big plan for me. I don’t know if I got things wrong. I don’t understand why others’ hearts and visions didn’t align with what I thought He’d shown me, and I may never know. Perhaps the promises are yet to be fulfilled and it just wasn’t time. But I have 11/11 to stand on as a miracle. I know that He is my loving Father, and He has good things for me. I know that He can and will heal my broken heart. I will continue searching for Him and the good in all things, and watching as He orders more miracles.