Practice, and Coaching, the pathway to wholeness and peace.

Practice, and Coaching, the pathway to wholeness and peace.

Today is a wretched day. One of the very hardest for me, on our annual calendar.

And tomorrow is worse.

The way things were supposed to play out, me and my wife were supposed to be in the middle of planning for a four year old girls birthday party in the next couple weeks, while juggling a busy holiday schedule.

But now we are not.

For years ago today my wife, 2 weeks from her due date with our forth child made a heart wrenching discovery. The baby girl she was carrying had stopped moving, kicking, and jostling about. She went to the hospital. Then she called me. I called my mom. That was a long drive. And the night was longer. All I can seem to remember is the piercing silence of those moments, and how they were not going to be broken by the happy sounds of new birth.

Just more wretched silence.

Followed by a brutal walk down the hall of unit 25 in Red Deer. Good friends by our side.

Its been four years since we lost Keziah.

Her birth-day is tomorrow.

And, my heart still breaks when I remember the events that surrounded those days. I was a broken man, maybe someday, I’ll tell you what was really going on, but for now lets just say, our marriage was pushed right to the breaking point during her pregnancy.

It had everything to do with me, walking away from things I had committed to.

Keziah’s death changed all that, but, it got worse before it got better. And at the very fever pitch, with our marriage flailing about on its last legs, I reached out for help.

Boy am I glad I did.

Today I believe that we all have a TRIBE. A group of people around us, ready, willing, able, to help at a moments notice. I believe these people can be put into action, for more than just helping us with flat tires, shingling a roof, party decorations, or baking cakes. Those are all good things, don’t get me wrong.

I’m talking about better things.

Best things.

I’m talking about practice, and coaching.

Every day, as we go through the motions of yet another day, we reinforce (practice) many of the same things. Over and over and over. We don’t think about it as practice. But it is. Practicing with stunning rapidity, the things that will make us our future selves.

Maybe if you think about it you won’t like the things that you are practicing.

I didn’t. I began to HATE the things I was practicing.

Because, the result of all that practice had devastating effect.

Enter my TRIBE, a Tribe, that I opened myself up to let Coach me in my life.

In sports, coaches watch what you are doing, correct, and get you to practice the best way of doing things. The trick with applying this directly to life is, we spend an inordinate amount of energy masking (read, lying, hiding, obscuring)  the true reality of who we really are.  In sports there is no hiding behind a mask, there is TV cameras, game tape, and a score clock beaming your accomplishment (or lack thereof) to the world, there are no masks to hide behind.

Failure in the past CAN be a path to success in the future.

If you are willing to take your mask off, and open yourself up to be coached.

But this is hard work.

And that is what we did.

Today, I am a changed man, but I’m changed because we choose to do the hard work of shining Light into the dark corners of our lives. Coaches get you to practice what they know will be good for you, what they know will help. And it took deep life change, the kind that changes the things you DO, the way you TALK, the way you think about YOURSELF.

It would not have worked, if we choose to keep our masks on. Instead we created a place of safety, where, we were allowed to be vulnerable.

It’s been four years.

Four long years.

Today we have a sweet little 2 year old, that I Know we would not have had – if Keziah had lived. It’s been four years, and as much as I wish it was different, I am confronted with the fact that I can’t wish it was different.

I’m conflicted.

But I am also better.

slv2all

"Cry baby Cry"

“Cry baby cry!”

These words pierce my soul the other day.

I came in from moving the white stuff around to hear that our little one year old had shared the blessed experience of having another fit.

Fun.

Not sure what it is about a crying baby sucking all the life out of frustrated parents that don’t know “What is up?” or “What they want” or “What set them off”. For those of you that have had 1 year olds, you know, they want to tell you what they want, but they don’t know how – so they point and grunt and throw their head back and, … CRY!!!

But these words have another meaning for us.

“Cry baby cry!”

After our daughter Keziah was born still. We started the slow painful process of rebuilding our lives. On one level (marriage and relationship) we had tough slugging to do (more about that in a future post), on another level we had decisions to make.

The biggest question we would tackle together as husband and wife was if we wanted to have one more child. The answer was simply yes, but there was a waiting time for healing – and then…

9 months of pure agony mixed with joy, anticipation, and ultra sounds. Lots of ultrasounds. Weekly appointments, plans, everything about us was focused on this new little bundle of joy. Every movement evoked a memory of Keziah’s movements, every late night in utero baby sleep jolted us awake with cups of ice water, and thankful baby (Sorry can’t use the term fetal – kinda hate that term) movements. Plans were drawn up around how we would move forward with actual delivery – C section? Induction? When? What was best for baby? What was best for us? For the first time Lynn found out the sex of the baby, we were having – you guessed it, another girl.

More tears, More Joy. More wonderment.

And then came that night at the hospital. That familiar wing – unit 25. Seems like everyone knew the story. And we had eager heart wrenching anticipation of the moments before us.

Been here before. But not like this.

And we would leave this place again – down that same hallway – would we leave empty handed, or….

In all my life I don’t think I had felt such nervous anticipation.

My Bride Lynn was amazing – she was every time.

And then that moment, She was born, and a split second of awkward silence was pierced by my wife’s words. Were they a prayer? Or just desperate visceral desire. I can hear them like she spoke them yesterday…

“Cry Baby CRY!”
…

And she did...



I’ve got a picture of that moment.

That moment.

When nearly 2 years of tears had been whipped away by the hand of The almighty himself.

Joy returned to my Bride.

And peace to my soul.


And so we lost ourselves in the bliss, mixed with heartache, and Joy of that moment. A moment that never should have been, but was. We had a mixed uncomfortable troubled thankfulness. And then we put our little bundle into her car seat. And walked down the righthand hallway of Unit 25 holding hands. Joy again meshed with sorrow, we cried more tears for the familiarity of the last time we walked that hallway. The last time we didn’t want to leave empty, this time we left with a discomforting satisfaction.

And today, as three older siblings and 2 adults try to pick up the toys chasing after our 1 year old girl, when she cries (and she sure has a set of lungs now) I am reminded both of the cry that was…

And, the cry that wasn’t

slv2all

It’s Christmas time.

It’s Christmas time.

You know the time of year. You put up lights, you plan your schedule, you probably start on the interior decorations, and begin the Christmas shopping season in conjunction with the “sales” that happen this time of year.

And then there is the music.

I don’t know what it is, there is something about the music.

Christmas is different for us. 3 years ago, My wife and I suffered an anguishing loss this time of year. On November 29th Our Daughter Keziah was born still – 2 weeks shy of our due date.

Peace on earth good will to men, seemed to become the opposite that year.

And it changed Christmas for us forever.

As a man, a husband, and father. I know what I lost, but I will never understand what my wife lost, she lost something more than the rest of us, she lost someone she spend nearly 9 months with, the rest of us lost the hope of what could have been.

Christmas music.

For us, it is a reason to cry, to sit in the uncomfortable realm of NOT knowing, of NOT understanding, of NOT being in control.

But here is what we know:

We know we lost our Daughter at Christmas. We know that this profound loss, drove us – in an unexplained way, back into each other’s arms. We know that through tragic circumstances we began to change, we began to love each other again. We know that as a husband, I finally got my @%&# together to be the man that God called me to be. We know that Jesus is real, and is the real meaning of Christmas, and that, just because he is real and because we believe in Him, doesn’t mean that we will be spared from all sorts of pain in this life.

We also found out something else.

We found out that the Daughter we now hold at Christmas, our precious little, rambunctious, walking Bubbly, whiney, snotty, lovely, sweet little 1 year old girl Amayah is here and if Keziah had lived, Amayah would have never been.

So, we sit here confused.

Angry yet thankful. Happy on the outside, still awkwardly wrecked on the inside.

Bewildered.

And I am simply reminded. Justin, you are not in control of everything, you are in control of somethings.

It isn’t what happens too you that defines you.

It is how you respond.

slv2all