hope

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.

Where is Poppy?

Heart Lessons

I met a friend for lunch today. She showed up with a small gift bag, and set it to the side when we sat down. While waiting for our coconut curry, she started telling me a story. For Christmas, she’d ordered a red-headed doll for her red-headed granddaughter. When she asked her daughter what name should be embroidered on the doll’s dress, she advised ‘Honey’ was the name of the lovingly worn doll that was being replaced. But the delivery date for Honey 2.0 was uncomfortably close to Christmas, so Grandma (also Honey) decided she’d place a backup order with another vendor, just in case. To ensure that granddaughter didn’t end up with two Honeys if/when both arrived, she paused when entering the personalization details on her order. Another very specific, albeit seemingly meaningless, name came to mind and she decided to type that in the order details. Honey 2.0 arrived in time, and granddaughter received her for Christmas, as originally planned. The backup doll also arrived, but as Grandma Honey scrolled her social media news feed, she saw something that jumped off the screen. And she knew that backup Honey was not for her granddaughter, but for me.

Each year, I prayerfully seek a single word for that year. A guiding theme, if you will. On January 20th, I shared my 2022 word, and Grandma Honey saw that post where I penned what the word represented to me; healing and resurrection.

As I allowed God to reveal to me what those things meant to Him, He showed me a picture of a little girl who’d called dreams frivolous.

Who’d said that silly girly things were okay for others, but not her. Who’d not even allowed her heart to begin to imagine what those things might be, and grew up to be a woman who then suffered loss, and dare not envision ever having those things again.

I was not prepared for what was in that gift bag. As she handed it to me, eyes brimming with tears, she softly said ‘Her name is Poppy.’ I couldn’t breathe as I pulled her out of the bag. And there she sat next to me; the sweet little girl with red hair, with her name embroidered at the bottom of her floral dress. The same word God had given me two months prior promising a year of healing and resurrection emblazoned on her girly smock of pink, purple, yellow and green blooms. The girliest of all girls sat happily donning my theme for the year, alongside her bright pink mary janes and a bow on her high-and-tight ponytail. Her fiery hair the same shade of red in the poppy petals on my phone wallpaper. Through my tears, I uttered the only thing I could. ‘I have no words.’

This same time the day prior, I’d completed something absolutely terrifying to me, including all things frivolous and feminine. You see, for this grown-up girl who dared not hope, stepping into those hallowed places triggers fears that can only be described as facing an insurmountable phobia.

But in this year of Poppy, my sweet heavenly Father had been gently prodding me to take vulnerable steps toward newfound dreams.

And with each new ask, the prodding and risk grew, the latest taking me somewhere I never could have conceived. I will share the details of this big request someday on the other side of the promise, but as Poppy looked back at me, I knew that He’d orchestrated this lunch with sweet Grandma Honey, which had been delayed multiple times, to fall twenty-four hours after I’d been obedient to His request. He’d prompted her to order backup Honey, and name her Poppy. He’d delayed her delivery of Poppy to her granddaughter, knowing she’d see my post. This doll represented everything about His love for me.

As I climbed in my car after our four-hour lunch wrapped and saw Poppy’s red hair poking out of the bag in my peripheral vision, I again cried. He’d seen it all. The fears of that little girl avoiding hope at all costs. The vows of that single mom to protect her heart. The trembling hands of an obedient daughter, desperate to walk out anything her Father asked of her. But beyond it all, He saw His original design for her life, complete with feminine edges, feelings, and frivolous sundries. And dreams far, far beyond her comprehension. I pulled up the scripture He’d assigned to 2022, inserted my name, and spoke it aloud:

Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in Kerri and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than Kerri’s greatest request, Kerri’s most unbelievable dream, and exceed Kerri’s wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes Kerri.

Ephesians 3:20 TPT

I’m still considering where Poppy should perch now that she’s comfortably home, but it must be someplace fitting the embodiment of those consecrated words out of Ephesians. Where does your Poppy live? Is she placed prominently somewhere, ready to be picked up and tended to? Is she tucked in a drawer, only to be seen when you need to access something you absolutely must have? Is she stuffed in the dark corner of the closet, a heartbreaking reminder of what no longer fits? Did you even ever let her out of the box? Have you misplaced the box entirely? Try as you may to pretend like Poppy doesn’t exist, the Manufacturer produced her to your exact specifications. She fits perfectly. You are suitable to carry her. She may fade and wrinkle a bit, but she will not expire, no matter how long you leave her unattended. And what we cannot fathom, is the joy waiting for those in the legacy of our having followed those dreams, for they too will one day hold Poppy. Do not allow the fears paralyzing you today to thwart that endowment.

I may not always perfectly tend to Poppy, but now that I have the hope of her, I am never letting go. Find your Poppy.