...Sorrow That the Eye Can't See

You need to meet these people.  They have incredible hearts, incredible testimonies, and incredible challenges.  They are all featured in a new video called "Special Challenges" that was created by my dear friend Katie Steed.  Katie was my roommate at Brigham Young University, and is now a professor of special education at BYU.  She is an inspiration to me.  From the time she was in high school she has felt a special calling to be an advocate for individuals with special needs and their families.  She has been a voice for those who are often unheard or ignored in our neighborhoods, schools, and congregations.  She has taught me over and over again that love and faith can move mountains and heal hearts. 

This video features three families that have children with special needs. It highlights their unique joys, but also paints a very realistic and heartbreaking picture of their pains and struggles.

As Katie shared this video with me a few weeks ago I wept. I wept because I felt inspired by the deep love these parents have for their children.  I wept because I recognize in them some of the pain I have felt as I struggle through my own life.  But mostly I wept as one mother shared her connection to the song "Lord, I Would Follow Thee."  The title of this blog comes from the second verse of that very song. This sweet mother talked about her new understanding of the lyrics in the quiet heart is hidden, sorrow that the eye can't see.  As I listened to her share her connection to those words my heart connected to hers and I knew I needed to share her message, because it is my message too.

Love is the answer. We each carry our own personal heartache and yet we each have the capacity to choose love. We can each learn the healer's art and reach out to those around us who carry sometimes deep and often unseen sorrow.

Katie has taught me about love.  She has mourned with me, listened to me, and comforted me in my darkest hours.  She is an incredible example of Christlike love, and the love she feels for these families is evident in the powerful message this video shares.

Please take a few minutes to listen to these families and their experiences, share this message with others, and let it guide your actions.

Special Challenges


A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:34-35

Jonah's Gift

This week I've been thinking a lot about Jonah.  Three years ago this week I was very overdue and anxiously awaiting his arrival.  I spent my days wondering if Jordan and I would ever agree on a name for him.  I spent my nights walking around our neighborhood, eating spicy curry, and turning like an alligator in a death roll instead of sleeping.  I imagined that Jonah's birth would change me.  But I could not possibly comprehend how his life would shape mine.   

I am so grateful to Jonah for helping me understand what it means to be a child of God.  His life helped me learn to love with my whole heart.  His challenges helped me grasp the beauty of an imperfect life.  His laugh made me laugh.  His smile made me smile.  Serving him helped me redefine exhaustion. Losing him taught me that pain is inevitably linked with love. 

Tonight as I sit in a dimly lit motel room in Rangely, Colorado I feel disoriented by the divergent paths our lives have taken.  I feel like I should be in the midst of potty-training and preschool preparation.  My heart still aches, and my arms long to hold him.  And yet, I have come to accept his absence as time has passed.  I accept it, but I still want to honor his life and celebrate my sweet Jonah on his third birthday. 

This year, like last year, I hope to honor Jonah's life through simple acts of service.  I invite you  to celebrate his life with me by mirroring his generous spirit.  Do something good on Jonah's birthday, July 14.  Be unusually kind.  Pay attention to the people around you.  Hug someone you love.  Call an old friend.  When you see someone in need help them. 

Keep it simple.  Jonah taught me that love is the simplest gift we give.  


P.S. I would love to hear what gifts you give in Jonah's memory this year. 

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.  Maya Angelou

Mormon Women Project Interview

I was recently interviewed by my friend Kathryn for the Mormon Women Project.  I was so grateful for the invitation, and for the opportunity to share my experience and my testimony with a new audience.  But most of all I was grateful to talk about Jonah.  It felt so good to say his name.  I'm so grateful for the simple conversations in life.  There is so much healing in sharing our stories, and so much love in a listening ear.

Thanks to Kathryn Peterson for taking the time to listen, and to each of you for reading my words and sharing your own stories with me.

If a story is in you, it has got to come out.
William Faulkner 

Scars

A month ago I sat in the peaceful silence of the Draper Temple, waiting. I stared at the two stark white tube socks that shrouded my feet and contemplated their strange presence in a place of such beauty and refinement.  They seemed to me the perfect representation of Mormon practicality - a simple and unpretentious solution born to protect the purity of a sacred space.

My eyes drifted up to take in the elegant vaulted ceiling, the understated stained glass, and the expansive mirror that hung directly across the room.  I took in the beauty and light that surrounded me, but could not seem to look at the people around me - my family.  My mom and dad sat beside me; my aunt and uncle and cousins throughout the room; my grandmother nearby.  I could not look into their eyes because I knew I would fall apart. I did not want to distract or draw attention to myself so my gaze returned to the safety of my cotton clad feet, and my thoughts turned inward.

As my eyes scanned the cream-colored carpet I thought about my lovely cousin Lisa.  After all it was her joy that brought me and my family to the temple.  I thought about the drawn-out heartache she faced on her road to motherhood and the miracle we witnessed as she and her husband adopted two sweet boys from Ethiopia. This day was their day; a day to be sealed together as an eternal family.  My brimming emotion was the result of joy, love, grace, and heartache colliding.  I prayed that I could contain the overflow, but my control seemed tenuous at best.

All at once, I felt the intense physical yearning of my heart to be with Jonah again; to be a whole family again. If only I could hold him for a moment, and feel him in my arms.  I felt like singing and praising God for the miracle of my cousin's joy.  At the same time, I couldn't help but imagine how and when our miracle would come.  I wondered if my return to motherhood would find finality in this life or the next.

My thoughts drifted to the reality of a doctor's office.  Months ago, I found myself looking intently at a small white blip floating across the grey undulating ocean of an ultrasound.   

Scar tissue, my doctor explained.
How?, I wondered.
Probably from Jonah's birth, he said.

His explanation continued. Abnormal. Surgery. Insurance.  Throughout this dialogue my thoughts drifted to the symbolism or maybe the irony of an unseen scar; a life-altering change born of joy and pain. How is it that my new heartache is the product of previous joys?

My eyes were drawn from their downward gaze and my thoughts returned to the present, as Lisa and her family arrived in the sealing room. I looked at her and felt so much gratitude for her journey, and her own unseen scars.  Those scars brought such beauty and meaning to the moment.  I looked at her mother, my endlessly-compassionate aunt, and quietly acknowledged the scars that grace her heart.  I felt very aware that my sweet parents and my wise grandmother share the scars of their children and grandchildren.  I contemplated the scars that are added with each passing generation.  Then I thanked my Heavenly Father for the beauty of my own scarred life

In that moment of gratitude the tears finally escaped.  I felt such joy in my wounded family.  I felt a wholeness that I can only describe as Jonah's sweet spirit, and I felt a perfect peace that is still lingering in the corners of my heart and mind.

It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.  
Garrison Keillor

A New Heart

Last week I found myself wandering across a talus hillside in Colorado. Crumbling sandstone,  wind-twisted junipers, and gatherings of sage brush repeated across the slope.  My eyes were once again trained to the ground, searching for fossils, bones, any evidence of ancient life.  Together Jordan and I crested each monotonous hill, turning rocks and scanning for anything important or unusual.  I took pictures and scribbled notes about the unchanging landscape, while a frigid wind whipped my neck.  I looked hopefully for unexpected signs of spring; perhaps a small desert flower amid the dust and barbed wire.  I discovered that spring comes late to the high desert.

In the solitude and quiet of the desert my mind began to wander.  I thought about the weather, Jordan, lunch, money, the Grateful Dead, insurance, Jonah, babies...   Then my ambling mind fixated on questions, not in anger, but with sincerity.  "Why am I here again?" "Why am I still doing this?"

Last year after losing Jonah I began working with Jordan in the oil fields looking for fossils.  It was a blessing.  It felt good to wander, to slow down, and to spend my days and nights with Jordan. I needed to be in a new place without expectations and memories.  I needed time to think.  "This is just temporary," I thought.  "Just until my life is restored to what it once was...Just until I'm a mom again."

Roaming the Colorado desert only punctuated the knowledge that my return to motherhood still seems distant.  Nineteen months after Jonah's death we are still just two instead of three.  And like my thoughts we are still wandering.

As I pondered my purpose and place in the desert I picked up a wide flat stone.  One reddish-brown stone among millions.  I was drawn to the bumps and ridges dotting its beveled surface.  I brushed my hand across its ripples, then turned it to discover the opposing side.  I was surprised to see a perfect heart shape worn by time on its face. I wondered how it was formed.  What forces of wind and water could have caused such symmetry? Why did the rock around it remain unchanged?  Was I the first to find and see this graven heart?

I thought of the scripture in Ezekiel,

A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

I understood more deeply in that moment that a new heart and a new spirit do not come through a simple transaction.  Our hearts are not simply traded and replaced.  God's work on our hearts is more like the eroding and shaping power of the elements.  Each mineral or grain of sand is removed by a drop of water or a gust of wind.  Each miniscule erosion is replaced and renewed with purpose.  Our hearts are changed one thought, one tear, and one trial at a time.  We rarely understand what we are becoming, but God is shaping us.  I could feel in that moment that He was shaping me.

I wrapped my stony heart in a blue bandana, and carried it with me as I wandered. I felt its weight in my hand throughout the day.  With each step my own stony heart felt more submissive, more willing to accept the momentary chill of the desert wind.  As I meandered through the junipers my thoughts wandered again.  This time to a simple reflection.   I pondered the new heart being carefully shaped by my creator and felt at peace as I began to climb yet another hill.