Nicole K. Twedt

Being Brave When Life Is Hard

Random Thoughts On Healing

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Here’s the deal:  I’ve spent many years praying for the healing of my hearing loss.  And it’s been hard, really hard.  And harder, still, when I think of how my prayers for my own healing overlap with prayers for two of my three children and their very different losses.

Of course, the intensity of my prayers for healing comes and goes.  There’s seasons when I find myself crying out to the Lord regularly, begging him to make these ears of mine work and make them work already.  Yet in other seasons, healing is a fleeting thought simmering in the back of my mind.  In times like these, the need for healing is concealed by the urgent needs of here and now.  But it’s always there, this longing for something better.

A thought, possibly a divine one, came to me last week through the Holy Spirit, and homework from a Beth Moore Bible study, of course.  He prompted my heart to focus on the promises of his kingdom that are forever, rather than viewing the kingdom and its promises as promises yet to come, like my hearing.  Does that make sense?

Here’s what I mean:  It’s hard for me to pray, day in and day out, season after season, for the one thing that isn’t getting better: my hearing loss.  Especially since my hearing is supposed to get worse.  But, this sensitive heart of mine is encouraged to keep on asking, and asking again, because the answer is guaranteed to come and will never be taken away.

What’s more, does it matter when it’s going to happen? Well, of course it does.  I’m impatient.

I’m going to ramble for a minute, just go with me.  Let’s pretend that waiting for my healing is like waiting for a party to start.  I know the party has been planned, the invitations have been sent out to the heavenly hosts, the venue reserved.  But I haven’t received my invitation, and I’m getting frustrated.  Even though I know in the end it will be a grand affair, worth it in the long run.  For it will be a surprise party, and I’ll be the guest of honor.  And it won’t matter if the big event happens today or tomorrow, next year, or years from now, on this side of heaven or the next.  In the end, I’ll look back and it will not matter.  It’s going to happen all the same.

If it’s not like a party, than maybe it’s like a grand celebration at the end of a race.  Once again, I’m mixing metaphors.

Either way, in just a little while he will make all things new.  All things.  My hearing.  Lauren’s hearing.  Steven’s vision.   It doesn’t matter so much that the healing hasn’t come, since this is all temporary anyway.  Well, of course it matters.  But maybe, just maybe, living with loss or a different sensory ability (never disability) isn’t the short end of the stick that it appears to be.  You’d better believe me when I say that it feels like the short end of the stick.  But is it?

I keep praying, asking, and hoping for the healing now.  But the other side of heaven isn’t so far off.  I know that when we look back, it won’t be.  I say this with trembling hands lifted high in praise.  And of course, I will have to lower my trembling hands from time to time, long enough for me to wipe away the tears.

Because it hurts to wait.

I’m reminded of the wedding reception miracle found in John 2.  I know it’s taking everything out of context, but it’s how my mind works.  Other women can multi-task.  My mind specializes in making random God-connections.  And these connections are holy, for they bring me back to him.

Remember at the reception when Jesus filled the containers that were set aside for ceremonial cleansing, and had them filled with water by the servants to be turned into something better?  The wine was incomparable, a wine above other wines.  The Master of Ceremonies approached the bride groom, baffled really.  How could the best wine be saved for last?  But you see, I never realized it before but the best was yet to come.  It was Jesus revealing his glory in perfect time.

Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with races and finish lines and surprise parties and healing, but I think it does.

I’m reminded once again that his timing is perfect.  Always perfect, no matter when his glory is revealed.  Even when it hurts.  His timing is perfect, every single time.

He’s saying this to me, more and more.

His timing is perfect.  The best is yet to come.  Hold on, he seems to say, it’s coming.

The Dawn of About to Get Better

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There’s a shifting, a shaking, a changing in our family, a change for the better.  And it’s coming soon, I know it.  The Twedtlings and I (and Greg of course), well it’s like we’re living in the dawn of about to get better.  I can almost taste it, we’re that close!  From what I can tell, this change will be an awful lot of work, but it will be worth it.  For it’s already bringing hope to our family, along with peace, love and great joy.

The dawn of about to get better.  That’s a line I wrote at the end of our 2016 Christmas letter.  I don’t know why I added it.  I don’t even like the sound of the dawn of about to get better, it’s so cheesy.  What does it even mean?

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to write a different ending, even when the letter went through edits for the blog.  I didn’t know it at the time, I couldn’t have, but this little phrase was going to be down-right prophetic for our family, particularly one of us.  How could I possibly know that something so big and so terrible was about to get better?  Especially since it was going to get a lot worse in the first few months of the new year.  Nonetheless, something was about to change.

I’m itching to write more.  The whys and hows of this dawn of about to get better, all that’s shifting and changing, and taking new form.

You see, my family and I are setting off on the marathon of our lives.  No, that can’t be right.  What’s about to happen is more like a much-needed pause during the middle of a race.  Not that races have half-times.  I’m not the best when it comes to sport analogies.

I participated in quite a few 5Ks back in college, my glory days.  Or they would have been my glory days if I wasn’t so messed up.   Anyway, I admit  most of the races were all about the free long-sleeve T-shirts, the ones with the name or cause of the race on the front and all the sponsor logos on the back.  I’d proudly wear my race T-shirts on walks or runs around Green Lake.   They made me look the part of the runner that I surely wasn’t.

Back to the 5K.  Most of all, I remember the cheerful volunteers on the side of the road, around the halfway point, holding Dixie cups of cold water or Gatorade for me to grab as I dashed limped by.   Now that I’ve had three babies, drinking anything while running (even before running) is never a good idea, no matter how refreshing it sounds.  Who am I kidding? I don’t run anymore.

Anyway, the Dixie cup of cold water represents the season we’re in, a season of refreshing.  Not to be confused with a season of rest.  There will be no resting in this season.  We’ll be running harder than we’ve ever run before.  But our bodies and souls will be nourished along the way, which makes all the difference.  For nourishment to the soul is what it will take for us to run together and not hold back.

Perhaps a better picture would be of the five of us entering a new race altogether, one we’re equipped to run because we’re learning to pace ourselves.  The race course is new to us, but we’ll figure it out with a little help.  We’re sure to grow tired, we’ll stumble or fall.  But help will come when we need it.

I’m mixing metaphors.  I’m getting tired.

I will write more about this soon, very soon, and with fear and trembling.

For it’s a different kind of story altogether.  It’s not about healing or grieving, or any of what I usually write about.  It’s more of a perspective shift.  And this little shift in perspective has been one of the greatest Ah-ha moments of my life.

O Lord, help me trust you.  Help me trust you as I dwell with my family in the dawn of about to get better.  A new day is dawning, surely it is.  I’m holding onto this promise.   I think of Psalm 92:4 when I think of you and I praise you for it.  For you said about yourself, “He will cover you with feathers.  In his wings you will find refuge.”  How mighty and how beautiful it is to be covered by the feathers of your wings.  Up close, I can see the intricate detail, patterning and glossiness of your feathers, of your glory, your strength.  I don’t even like birds but I have a thing for them because of you.  Help me be brave enough to see your beauty in every point of this new race, even the ugly parts when I’m limping along, out of breath and ready to quit.  But I will keep running because I’m not alone, never alone.  You are here, with every step along the way.

 P.S. You can read about the big ah-ha moment here.  Then everything went out the window with an even greater ah-ha moment.  You can read that essay here.

Grandpa

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Here’s the crazy thing: after working on a draft documenting a significant hurt in my life in the area of grief, I took it down.  I don’t want to know how many edits it went through, fifty?

Fifty-seven, I just checked. But I  took it down.  Back to draft status it goes, at least for now.

You see, I never intended to publish the piece and then I did by mistake.  It needed to come out, what I wrote.  But the piece doesn’t need to be out there.  It was about my grandparents, my dad’s parents.  My only living grandparents.

All it took was a Facebook message from cousin Audrey for me to take it down.  Not that Audrey is aware of my writing spot on the web.  I love Audrey, dearly, by the way.  She’s a favorite.  It’s just that no one in my extended family knows about my writing.

Grandpa’s not doing well, you see.  He hurt his back helping Uncle Johnny move.  And he’s loosing weight, too much weight.  Why, you may wonder, was a ninety-four, soon-to-be ninety-five-year-old man involved in a move?

Knowing Grandpa, he couldn’t not help.  Keeping busy, working, helping, moving, that’s Grandpa.

Grandpa and Grandma’s anniversary party is cancelled, even though it’s four months out.  They are feeling overwhelmed.  Aunt Laurie is worried, because let’s face it, he’s almost ninety-six.  Grandpa’s going to bounce back or not.

I’m not sure how I feel about their anniversary party in the first place, before it was canceled.  I’m filled with regret now that it is.

But hearing the news of Grandpa’s misfortune, via Facebook Messenger no less, it weighs my heart with sadness.  And I’m so very angry.  But mostly, I’m sad for my aunts and uncles.   I’m sad for my granparents.  I’m sad for me, heartbroken for us all.

Oh, Lord, don’t take him now.  Quiet the soul of a man who never rests.  Help him find rest and be well.   Mend his back, his body.  Speak to him.  Let him hear your tender voice.  Help him know you are God and how much you love him.  Help him know you were in all of it, all of his life hurts.

My heart is being pulled across a mountain pass, to a walking trail around the Spokane River, to the brick and wood rambler near the community college.  Spokane calls to me.

Oh God, help.

Edited to add: My grandfather, Clarence Beck, passed away on July 2, 2017, a few weeks after his ninety-fifth birthday.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, beyond any of our control,  I was not able to say goodbye to him.  Toward the end of his life we found out it was cancer, not a back injury.  I was not close to my grandparents, but I think of Grandpa with fondness.  He was a kind, kind man, and a handsome one at that.  He was a hard worker, much like my husband.