On Loss & Gratefulness

 Oh, April. In all of your glorious spring sweetness and budding trees and green greens and sunshiny days, I sort of despise you right now.

April's always hard...the tune of old...with the looming very end of the month anniversary of my father's death. It is so very difficult to believe that this year is the 7th of dreading the end of April (and at least the 7th time I've processed about it on this blog). And this year feels a bit more loaded than usual in a different way, as we mark a significant good-bye in our lives and time here in Madison.

In 2005, my dad died and I moved to Chicago and Paul moved to Madison and I started grad school. In 2006, Paul and I got married and I moved to Madison and commuted to Chicago. In 2007, I finished grad school and got a real job and we were just an old married couple living in Madison. And our friends Tim and Jess moved back from a year in Jerusalem and suggested that the four of us get some other couples together and start a small group through our church. In 2007, Lifegroup began.

For the past five years, this group has been significant to us and to our lives in ways that no words could describe. We have met each week faithfully (for the most part - save a year of craziness and more intermittent gatherings), gathering for an evening of good food and even better conversations and life-sharing. The group has always been 5 couples - 1 1/2 years in when we lost dear Chris, Holly and then Baby D to pursue brilliance in chemistry abroad, and then 2 years in we gained Steve and Serina. We've shared everything from new jobs to new homes to new PhD's. We longed for babies and prepared for babies and literally been there to see each others' babies being born (and as I noted in our final dinner the other night, you know you're more than just good friends when you've shared that much, um, info with each other, if you know what I'm saying). Our Lifegroup quickly and continually became more than our friends. They are our family in Madison, a city where at least P, A and I have no blood relations to claim. They are also a family grounded in a common faith - wrestling with it so many times together, disagreeing at best and trying to understand but just not seeing eye to eye in others, but regardless committed to the muck of trying to understand just a little bit more about what this whole life means. Together.

Before moving to Madison, after leaving Nebraska to go to college, I didn't live in one place for more than a year for 6 years running. For someone who loves routine and resists change, I look back and can hardly believe that I moved 6 times in 6 years (and technically more). I was also living under the circumstances of change - we knew we'd all graduate at some point and go on to our lives, there was never an expectation to stay "together" geographically with any of the dear souls who came our ways. I realize now how this has mentality has shifted for me, how much my roots are starting to take place after living here in this beloved city for nearly 6 years. And it's hard to accept the fact that life will continue to change, that things are still going to change. And they are changing in front of my very eyes.

This evening, the Lifegroup gathered together at church to sit all together for Tim's last sermon. Tomorrow morning, he and Jess and their sweet little dude will board a plane and be on their way to a new, beautiful life in Portland. As I cried pretty much the entire service, I couldn't help but reflect some on loss and gratefulness and what it all means in our lives...

I thought about how this loss, while so very very different and really in most ways totally incomparable, is the first real to me loss I've experienced since my dad. I thought about how difficult it is to say good-bye to a time in your life that has shaped you so dramatically. I thought about how blessed I am to have such incredible, genuine, loving people in my life that I sob at the thought of them being thousands of miles away. I thought several times, "I hate you April."

As Tim finished his sermon, he implored with the congregation to remember one thing - that God's story is bigger than one person or even a group of people, a place in time or a chapter (even moment) in our lives. And when we let God's story be about less than what it has the possibility of being, we can become trapped. (Now I'm extrapolating a bit - but this is what was making sense and what I started hearing at some point.)

And then I thought about how I was feeling convicted. About how, 7 years later, I am still struggling to separate my own faith from the faith and work of my father. Struggling to find my own identity outside of the denomination that he loved so much, struggling to honor the things that he taught me while simultaneously honoring my own journey and knowledge and understanding. Struggling to grasp that he is not my faith, no matter how much he ultimately impacted and continues to impact both my faith and my life. Struggling to accept that God is God, and that God's story will continue to unfold, and it will be perfect...even when it feels hard to swallow and anger inspiring and tear provoking to me. Even when it's hard to believe that such a great story could mean loss and challenge and trying to find my way back again and again.

So tonight I'm tired of April and I'm weary of loss. But I'm also grateful for a life so rich with such amazing people that I can feel such a depth of sadness in their looming absence. And I'm remembering to place my hope and find my grounding in something bigger than I could ever comprehend. So I'll keep trying. And the Aprils will come and go, and the challenges will change, but the big story will remain. I will cling to that.