Yesterday, I began getting a headache in the evening. Assuming I must be dehydrated, I kept sucking down the water.

Earlier in the day, I had spent some time in the sun. It was 99 degrees outside, so I was pretty sweaty and gross. Since I was so gross, I decided the best follow-up activity would be sweating some more at the gym. Anyone who gets a lot of headaches has probably been told plenty of times that they just need to drink more water. Truth be told, this is the reason that I drink more water than anyone I know. I spend a large percentage of my day swallowing water or using the restroom. (We can safely assume that dehydration is rarely the actual cause of my headaches.) But, I’ve heard it enough that I still assumed my headache that began forming in the evening was due to a drinking failure.

As the night went on and my headache progressed, I realized how much water I had taken in, the frequency with which I needed to empty my bladder, and the reality of how great I felt when I got back from the gym and was in the kitchen, baking. If anything, I might have overdone the water intake for the day.

11:00/midnight rolled around and I started my prayer time, logging into to the blessed prayer room webstream… a lifeline for extended times away. Rose (a beloved part of the extended IHOP-KC family) had surgery coming up within a few hours and there was a lot of emphasis on prayer for healing. And there was A LOT of life on the prayers. I was definitely feeling it, from my little prayer room extension… my bedroom.

Around 1:20, Emily Russell prayed. And that was it. I don’t know what happened, but it was like she cracked something open. I sat weeping on my bed for the next 30 minutes.

Now, crying tends to make my bad headaches worse. (Probably no more than refusing to cry, though.) So it wasn’t looking too good for me and my headache. But I was really dialoguing with the Lord about His desire to heal, His promises to our community, and the promises of scripture. He IS a God who heals.

This might sound weird, but in all of my investigation and searching for my migraine triggers, there is one thing I have noticed that has been terribly consistent (well, kind of two, but I won’t go into the second). You won’t find this trigger listed anywhere that talks about migraine headaches. My “trigger”? Prayer.

The more I have broken my agreement with consistent headaches in my life, the more I have woken up from my place of resigning to it, the more I have asked God to heal me, and the more others have partnered with me in praying for healing… the worse and more frequent they have gotten. Every time I stand for healing prayer in the prayer room or sit in the back row for healing prayer, I am almost guaranteed noticeable backlash in the very near future.

So, as I sat there joining my heart with the prayers of my community and asking the Lord to do what He longs to do, I couldn’t help but laugh at the rapid worsening of my headache.

I don’t understand why it is like that. I definitely don’t fully understand warfare. I’m not OK with the fact that prayer, in essense, seems to make my headaches worse. But I am taking it as evidence that the Lord has finally awakened me to the real battle for my physical healing. He is able to heal me. And I believe that He will. And the “backlash” has given me hope that sickness is desperately fighting against me… grasping on as it ultimately looses its grip on me. I also take it as a sign of hope in my once apathetic and numbed heart. As Moltmann has said: as freedom gets closer, the chains begin to hurt.

By 3 AM, my headache had landed and settled in to its usual loction, right behind my eye. Definitely a migraine.

It was pretty miserable, but not bad enough yet that I couldn’t sleep. It was well after four before I managed to be unconscious, but I did, happily, get a little sleep. A little. Until I finally reached the point where that was impossible.

I spent most of that morning (when I should have been sleeping) pleading with the Lord, trying desperately not to move, and in far too much pain to have any hope of being unconscious. You wouldn’t believe how long I resisted my miserable trip to the bathroom before the desire to NOT wet myself won out. I probably should have let myself throw up at that time. It took a lot of restraint not to. And I might have felt a little better if I had. But I despise vomitting. (As helpful as it sometimes is.)

I returned to my bed, updated my status to ask for prayer, and continued to lay there, pleading with the Lord to do something about the pain.

After some time, sleep came. That in itself felt like a miracle.

I woke up a couple of times to find that I wasn’t in excruciating pain anymore. I would thank the Lord, roll over, and go back to sleep. Such joy!

I finally got out of bed at 2:30. And my head didn’t hurt at all. No, really… not at all. I know migraine headaches can be as short as a few hours, but I can’t say I’ve ever been that fortunate.

I’m usually pretty dizzy and nauseated, with a low-level headache for the day or two after a migraine. But…

I continued through the rest of the day feeling wonderful. As if I hadn’t just suffered through one of my most horrendous migraine headaches. In fact, it didn’t even feel like the day after a migraine. I think twice in the entire day, I felt a little sick/dizzy. But it passed almost immediately and may have been a food thing.

I have never had that happen before. I have never had a headache of that intensity so quickly and completely disappear.

So… my conclusion: prayer works. Thank You, Lord!

As far as I know, that’s the last one. And until I know otherwise, I will continue to live in the hope and possibility that it is.

That’s the tension of waiting for healing. True hope causes you to live every day in the possibility that maybe that’s your day. (Thank you, Leah Morgan, for reminding me of that and helping give me the courage to continue hoping as the circumstances overwhelmed me.) Hope is dangerous. It opens you up to pain (and joy). Because hope deferred truly does make the heart sick. Disappointed hopes are painful because hope is the stubborn resistance to the temptation to be unfeeling and indifferent. Hope like that is only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are too weary, without His strength, to continue in the vibrant life that hope awakens.

So, I am still choosing the life of hope. I am leaning on the Holy Spirit, daily being renewed by His life within me. And the God of Hope is filling me with all joy and peace in believing, causing me to abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).

And I am grateful for His healing power, manifesting itself in the world, in my life.

My first week in Texas was… rough. I was tired and overwhelmed. I felt my confidence completely deteriorating. And I found it unusually difficult to engage in a real way with the people I was giving time to be with.

Every time I opened my mouth and said something real that came from a place of any depth, I felt that I could, at any moment, completely fall apart. It didn’t matter where I was. It didn’t matter who I was with. If I dipped anywhere below the surface, I was sure to break down and begin bawling.

This was a problem. I did not want to burden my friends with my emotions. There was a lot of catching up to do. I didn’t feel like crying in public. I didn’t have time to go there. I didn’t really want to be that vulnerable.

So, quite naturally and with little thought, I suppressed my emotions. It took a lot of energy and an almost sub-conscious intentionality. But my once-perfected skill of shutting down my emotions kicked in and I was able to numb myself with very little conscious thought.

I stuck to the surface. If I felt myself about to crack, I would alter my course and steer away from the touchy things. I said relatively little. I felt very little.

There were two major consequences to responding to my emotions in this way. First, it became virtually impossible to relate to anyone in a real way, as I was setting apart significant time to meet with people. It’s hard to connect with a person with any depth when you are determined to stay at the surface. Simple contradiction. Second, I COULD NOT sleep.

Yes. I suppressed my emotions so thoroughly that it was keeping me up at night. It was exhausting.

After about a week of sleep deprivation, I finally realized what I was doing. So, Thursday morning, as I was failing again to fall asleep, the floodgates broke and I just started to cry.

From that point, I resolved not to shut down emotionally, for the rest of my time in Texas. Since then (the last three or four days)… I’ve cried A LOT.

One week to go. A lot of pain remains that I haven’t even touched. But the Holy Spirit, my Comforter, is with me. So I’m feeling pretty hopeful about the next seven days.

Today has been a miserable day. I know I’ve said this before, but the grieving process really doesn’t make ANY sense to me.

I’ve been occupied with some intense decluttering, simplifying, and letting go in the last few weeks. I guess I should have known how difficult it would be. I probably should have realized that I would be confronted with a million Mom things that were going to be really painful to contemplate releasing.

It’s amazing how difficult it can be to get rid of something that I have in any way associated with my mother.

Today was a big day. And I didn’t even realize it until I was curled up in the fetal position and bawling on the sound booth floor, leaving no one at my screens post.

On one of her last visits to Kansas City, my mom had spent a considerable amount of time hanging these little shelve things in my room. She had sketched out an entire layout for these shelves that were intended to house my Willow Tree figurines. A bunch of my friends (and my boyfriend, who was cooking for us that night) were over so that my mom and friends from Texas could get to know them a bit. We had great difficulty coaxing her to come and join us because she would not walk away from her project. She loved to express her love through giving and serving.

When I moved out of that room into the little basement apartment, I never took those shelves down. I couldn’t do it. So my incomplete wall of stuff decorated a chunk of Des and Jen’s room for the entire time that they lived in the house.

Well, we have a new roommate, now. And I realized that it was a bit ridiculous that pieces of my life are still residing in two bedrooms that I no longer physically occupy in our house. So, I took the shelves down today.

As I was boxing all of the little figurines, I found one that was still in its box. At the top of the box, stuck to the styrofoam, was a note from my mom.

Needless to say, my project for the day experienced a long delay. I couldn’t see a thing anymore, so I just stood there crying.

Fact: I have too much stuff. I value simplicity and the fasted lifestyle. There is a contradiction between my values and my circumstances. I need to let go of some things.

Fact: So many of my things have my mom attached to them. I want to hold on to every little bit of her that I still can.  The most important woman of my life is gone. How can I give up the tiny remnants of her life that surround me? It’s all that I have.

I’m still doing it. I’m not letting go of everything that I perhaps should, but I am letting go of little things here and there. And it is shredding my heart to pieces.

I just want her back in my life. It has been far too long.

I wanted to write a post about the things that are on my mind. I was going to call it “Grateful” because I am full of gratitude right now.

Then I realized that a lot of what was on my mind was really intimidating and I was scared. Change of plans: I was going to call it “Grateful & Scared”.

Then I realized that a lot of what was on my mind was…

I could keep going like this for a while. We’ll just stop there and sum it up with this: I am feeling A LOT of emotions right now. (I’m feeling. Let’s just pause for a moment to thank the Lord for that one. My heart is alive. So very alive. That wasn’t always true.)

When I said that I would stop there and sum it up, I didn’t mean to stop the entire post. At least I didn’t think that I did.

I started to write about the things that are on my mind.

I realized that this wasn’t stuff to blog about. Not yet.

I highlighted and deleted huge chunks of text.

I stopped and realized that there was nothing left but a play-by-play skeletal description of an event that was never allowed to… happen. Happening is to events as living is to organisms. It seems that there was no event after all.

The post could not bear witness, itself, to the fact that it nearly existed. It could not bear witness because it did not exist. Nonexistent anythings are nothing at all. Something must exist to truly be or do anything.

I judged it as right to leave this. I saw it fitting to leavesome evidence of a thing that nearly existed but was never allowed.

Here this is. And here that isn’t.

Or is it?

With the exception of losing my mom, I have probably never allowed myself to feel pain like this before. Maybe that devastating experience isn’t even an exception. It’s hard to compare the extent to which your heart is crushed by pain. And, really, the loss of my mom is an element of the pain that I am presently feeling. So, again, comparison is irrelevant here.

I had all of these powerful defenses that kept me from feeling pain in my life. And I executed them with great proficiency.

Shutting down my emotions used to be my first defense. I’ve blogged quite a bit about this, so I won’t develop it here. In any case, that is no longer an option. The cost is too high. Life is too valuable.

So… emotional deadness and zombie-esque living… that’s out.

My second defense was fantasy. I have blogged once about this. And I still lack language to clearly describe the folly of fantasy without going into great detail about personal things that should not be divulged in a very public blog. So, again… I will not really develop that here.

In short, I would escape to a world in my head. Well, to lots of worlds in my head. I would escape to other realities. I would escape to my imagined futures… futures that somehow turned around every presently negative thing in my life. All to save me from feeling the pain in my life… the real and present pain.

Last spring, fantasy and I made our final plunge into destruction. Sadly, my eyes were being opened to the wretchedness of fantasy… but I was simultaneously compromising in that area, very much leaning on fantasy. I justified it by the fact that it wasn’t as bad as what fantasy USED to be in my life. Oh, relativism. So, in the midst of my eyes being opened to sin, I was still developing my fantasy and moving in the direction of my fatal decision…

So we arrive at spring 2008: I chose fantasy in a serious way. In the process, I destroyed something beautiful and hurt someone I love.

Sin is often more costly than we know.

My shattered and repentant heart is finally done with fantasy. Which doesn’t mean I am not still fighting it, that it isn’t a temptation and very real struggle. But it is like the fight to stop shutting down my heart these last few years. I am absolutely determined. There’s no turning back here. And I trust God’s grace to help me actually overcome.

So, escaping to fantasy… that’s out.

I am running out of defenses here. Because I have said “yes” to the Lord and have chosen to forsake those other defenses.

And it hurts. It just hurts. Like… I can’t even describe it. It hurts. My recent status update on facebook may give some weak indication of the pain that I am feeling:

Christine is pretty sure that bloody pulp is her heart. It’s a little hard to tell right now.

I was confused by why I was feeling so much pain. One broken relationship. (And not even the broken relationship with the person I was dating for almost 6 months… the second time around.) It just didn’t make sense. How could this be so much more painful than all those other legitimately painful situations in my life?

And then it hit me this morning. I’ve been letting go of my defenses. Perhaps this hurts more than everything else because I am actually finally feeling the pain that is there.

I know that all of this is unto something greater. I know that I will come up leaning. I know that it is all leading me deeper into love. I know that God is with me and that He will carry me through this. He has gone to great lengths to tell me that.

If I didn’t know that, it seems like I would have to be dead right now. Without His presence and His grace… and the promise of the continuation of those things… I don’t see how I could possibly still be alive.

As much as it hurts, I cannot go back to the defenses. There’s something beautiful at the end of this. I’m sure of it. There has to be. All I know is that it really sucks right now… but it’s gonna be worth it.

I think I have pretty much recovered from onething. Any excessive exhaustion from this point forth, I will simply attribute to fasting (GBF and all) and the nature of my normal schedule.

I am really excited about the next month. It’s going to be a season of very intense focus and time given to really pursuing the Lord.

I have come to the end of my strength and I am seeking God’s strength. I have been experiencing deep sorrow and I am seeking God’s comfort. I am full of internal traffic and chaos and I am seeking God’s peace.

As a part of that, I am letting go of some of the crutches that God hasn’t already stripped away. You know, embracing voluntary weakness, forsaking false comforts, all that good stuff.

I am designating significant time each day (for this next month) to spend in solitude and silence, communing with the Holy Spirit.

In the word, I am focusing primarily on Hebrews and Hosea, and the Psalms. I am also going through a couple of books and talking to the Lord about their subjects: “Invitation to Solitude and Silence” and “Hiding from Love”.

(Ummm… not that I hide from love or anything crazy like that. Just like I’m surely not in the midst of an invitation to solitude and silence. Ummm… yeah…)

Thus far, it has been really amazing. And REALLY painful. I mean… really. Both.

I tell you all of that to ask for your prayers. There are some things that really need to happen in my heart. I am driven by desperation into this place of seeking. And I know that He is going to meet me. He’s the one who called me out here in the first place. But this is a really critical time for me. And I would appreciate all the prayer I can get.

I need a lot of grace right now. Of course, the simple fact that I am choosing this is evidence of the grace He is giving to press into this time. But, continuing to ask for grace sure doesn’t hurt.

Thank you for your prayers! (Go ahead: say a little 30-second prayer for me right now. It absolutely counts. And we’ll both benefit from you talking to God about me for a few seconds.)

It has been 22 months since the worst night of my life. No, really… the worst night of my life.

I didn’t realize that it was the worst night of my life. I was just enjoying a night off with some friends. Audra Hartke, Sarah Stroer, Kirk Bryson and I were just sitting around Audra’s table and talking when I checked my phone. I had a message from my dad. Weird, that’s REALLY late for my dad to be calling me. My mom wasn’t doing well and we needed to pray for her. It startled me a little bit, but… surely it will be ok. Will it? I couldn’t get worked up about it… I had to just pray and trust. And so that’s what I did… I couldn’t stop praying or thinking about it. I was admittedly rather distracted from what everyone was talking about. I was more or less present, but it was constantly on my mind.

And then I got the devastating news.

February 12th, 2007, my mom passed away. Completely unexpected. When everything SEEMED to be going relatively well.

I have blogged about this a lot in the last 22 months. (Most of it can be found under the “loss” category.) It almost seems like there is nothing left to say. And still, I keep uncovering more pain and more grief, yet to be felt.

It always hurts. I don’t stop missing her.  But sometimes it becomes more painful than the average, day-to-day “my mom is gone” reality.

The last week or so has been especially hard. And, while certain elements of grieving still remain a mystery to me, it’s not too baffling to see why this has been an especially hard time.

The most obvious explanation for my hightened sensitivity to this pain is the simple fact that we’re in the middle of the holiday season. My mom loved Thanksgiving. She wasn’t here. My birthday is in 10 days… she won’t be here. (She was a pretty significant part of the day of my birth, I’d say.) Christmas is in 13 days. She won’t be here. None of it is the same without her.

My dad and I used to go shopping for my mom the day after thanksgiving. Now, we go shopping for her family instead. She’s not here to to receive gifts from us… and she’s also not here to do that Christmas shopping for them. Honestly, we do a terrible job of it. We don’t have a clue what we’re doing!

It has also been snowing. I can’t share that with her. I also can’t share that with one of my snow-loving best friends.

In the months following my mother’s death, this person proved to be an incredible friend to me. He understood grief, and he knew how to support me and how to give me space in the midst of it. Plus… he was just an enjoyable person to be around. The blessing of his friendship extended far beyond “being there for me” after I lost my mom. He is just a really great guy who loves well and who I enjoy a lot. And our friendship profoundly embodied the things that I value most in relationship. I could be myself with him, weakness and all. In fact, I was more easily myself when I was around this person than perhaps at any other time.

Friendships change. Circumstances change. Lives change. And, after months of a truly valuable friendship, we can no longer be friends. That doesn’t really need explanation. I know the story. He knows the story. The friends who most intimately know my life and my heart know the story. And some stories can’t be told in a blog.

In any case, that friendship is also lost. Like my mom was lost.

The final closing of the door on the friendship was actually very recently. And I know that it is a factor in the pain that I am feeling now.

The grief of losing my mom is intense painful by itself. The grief of losing my relationship with this friend is painful enough by itself.  It would be hard to believe how much time I have spent crying and aching and pleading for the ministry of the Comforter over either of those losses.

But the realities of how that friend stood by me in the months following my mother’s death and some of the remarkable things he did to serve me and bless me in that time somehow ties the two deep wells of pain together. Pain that seems as if it cannot be worsened is somehow multiplied when it is met by like pain.

Sometimes I wonder how I am going to keep going, in the midst of the pain. How I am going to continue to say yes to the Lord… how I am going to choose to keep my heart open and alive, rather than shutting down and numbing myself to the pain. How my eyes are possibly going to continue to function properly after crying like that. And then I see the leadership of the Lord and I am reminded of the indwelling Spirit… and I know that He will see me to the end.

I’ve heard it so many times: pain is an escort. And it is so true. I am sitting in a heap of manure… and it is proving to be an incredible fertilizer. A lot of really incredible things have been happening in my heart. And I know that it is worth it. God really does take terrible things and work them for good.

If you think about it, pray for me. (Like… right now… since you’re thinking about it… pray for me. 30-second prayers count!) I could obviously use a lot of that right now. Pain sucks.