The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Trail Blazing
Every good Western has a tall tale included. A way that makes the story seem easy for the viewer at home. Scenic landscapes of horses and riders traveling all day blazing new trails. You never get a chance to see The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Trail Blazing.
I don't mean to lie. I don't mean to deceive. I don't mean to make a difficult situation seem easy. But the reality is that sometimes the only way through a difficult, life-changing situation is to bear down, work hard, and power through.
The problem with this model is that it breaks down. Not just in theory but also in practicality, inter-relations with people you love, and your spiritual relationship with God.
I was recently reminded by a close friend that it is ok to not be ok. During trauma, focusing on what you need to be healthy and fully functioning again is healthy.
I must be slow on the uptake because, as he talked, his voice faded to the background as my mind focused on one word...trauma.
“This moment was the first time the word trauma hit home”
This moment was the first time the word trauma hit home. Have we gone through a traumatic situation? No, not us. We are ok. We have been making it. We have been crushing this new path! Haven't we?
Well, I have been outraged a time or ten. And I am pretty mad at God lately. But have we really been through trauma? And even better, is it really affecting who I am and how I relate to others?
My friend drove home the point with me when he started talking about taking a stress assessment while attending medical school. I am familiar with the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory and have taken and distributed this assessment to many over the years.
I decided to take my friend's advice and retake this assessment, and I encourage you to do the same as well. Click here for more information.
To my surprise, I am off the charts with life stress. I scored a mear 634.
634...this puts me over double what the highly at-risk category is for this assessment. If you score 300 points or higher, you have an 80% chance of health breakdown in the next 2 years, according to the Holmes-Rahe statistical prediction model. I am not just barely in this category...I am the furthest into the stress category than I have ever been.
The second piece of advice my friend gave me was to write down everything in my life that is new over the past six months. I smirked a bit while talking to him over the phone when he suggested this exercise. I know...I know there have been a lot of changes, but it is not as bad as you think...right?
Shortly after starting this exercise, it took me only a little bit of time to fill up three pages of changes and changes that we have experienced over the past six months. And I am still working on this exercise.
Change is hard and adds more stress to our lives than we can imagine. It is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular diseases and leads to significant health complications.
But the symptom I hate the most is that stress has turned me into a Jeff that I don't want to be. And it seemingly did this overnight, although I know and understand that this is not how any of this works!
Here are just a few things that have changed in our lives in the past six months.
Living
To get Vanessa as close to medical care as possible, we sold our home in Sierra Vista, AZ, and moved to Phoenix, AZ. We now pay approximately $700 a month more to live in a one-bedroom/bath apartment at least half the size of our Sierra Vista home.
I tried my best to get this number as low as possible, but Phoenix's housing issues are real and challenging. The more economical apartments do not have wheelchair-accessible bathrooms - and in most cases, the entire apartment is more or less non-accessible for a full-time wheelchair user. The equal housing act passed in the 1990s only requires landlords to allow the renter to make modifications to the apartment - but still at the expense of the renter. The more economical apartments, which were only $200 less than our current housing option, would require a lengthy paperwork battle and an extensive renovation bill for an apartment we don't own. Housing units that were built before the act was established are exempt from this law, not required to make the same provisions for those with disabilities.
It has been difficult downsizing and learning to spend much more for less with our living conditions. We now have to put in maintenance requests for everything, including needed safety devices we now require. When we initially moved into the apartment, we fought with management for over three weeks to install safety bars in the bathroom...for a paraplegic. So any hope of having a fully functioning space Vanessa needs is limited in our current location. This doesn't mention the basic needs of an apartment, like a working microwave and fridge. We went 5 days without a working fridge and purchased our own microwave after a lengthy non-response from maintenance.
This housing transition also includes consistent pounding and barking above our heads from our neighbor's giant dogs. We have worked hard to ignore the extra noise level in our living space, but it is impossible to not notice this issue even affects our dogs - who are consistently on edge and barking. Unfortunately for us, this adds a bit extra to the baseline stress of living.
Even with this negative added stress level, we are blessed to be closer to medical appointments.
“We are in what I can only describe as a new season of firsts. This season of firsts has done wonders in helping shape us into better people.”
Relating to each other
We are in what I can only describe as a new season of firsts. This season of firsts has done wonders in helping shape us into better people. Once big annoyances and issues now seem insignificant in our life and marriage. This transition has been a blessing, and we are happy to continue to travel down the new road we are on together.
That stated, at times, we are learning to live with each other for the first time again, which is a metric that adds stress to your life on the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory.
Things that had become second nature in our marriage are suddenly different and new. For example, many couples who have been together for any length of time love to hug. Hugs for us were one of the first reality checks that life will never be the same unless God supplies a miracle to allow Vanessa to walk again. So like a couple hugging for the first time, we learned how to find a new normal for hugging each other.
This part of the list will be extensive once I can list all the differences, but another pattern of differences started to stick out to me as I looked over the list is body language.
For us, body language was one of the most challenging learning curves as a couple. I would perceive Vanessa to mean one thing based on her body language, but I was incorrect. For the past 9+ years of our marriage, I have learned to understand Vanessa and her unspoken language. Overnight it feels like all of that work was undone. We are on a new first-time path learning what each other's body language means. Nowadays, a grunt is an expression of pain or determination from Vanessa, whereas, for the past few years, this has been a sign of deep frustration.
Or one of the most significant shifts for me is her pushing/pulling against me. This interaction used to be a sign of irritation, but now it simply means she needs my help repositioning her body.
I cannot undersell how challenging this part of our new process has been. There have been many days of frustration and countless hours discussing the new meaning of shifts in body language.
We still have a long road of first ahead of us, remapping and relearning how to physically relate to each other. On the one hand, there is an excitement that we get to relearn each other, but on the other hand, there is deep grief. There is a pain, a loss of the familiarity that you get with years of marriage. And learning to acknowledge and not allow this transition to keep us down and frustrated at each other.
Spiritually/Church Life
One of the first things I did was connect to a church in the area and start leading worship music. There are several items on the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory that connect to starting a new job, leaving the community, connecting to a new community, and more categories than I can’t fully list here.
As Vanessa was sitting in inpatient rehabilitation at Barrow Neurological, I was filling in and working on starting a new job with a beautiful and loving congregation. This connection was a blessing beyond what words can describe. Through this congregation and church leadership, we understood that our ministry was not over; God can still use us in music post-accident. We are beyond blessed and grateful for the many connections, gifts, care, and prayers we received.
My failure was not accepting that our ministry would have to look different. This was another first that I would have to navigate in my life and one that I had to do with Vanessa at my side. This new reality requires that I change deep-seated patterns in how I do ministry.
This realization has taken way too long for me to come to grips with. Countless times, I have pushed Vanessa to adapt and join me on stage. This was, generally, a good thing. Vanessa could grow, learn, adapt, and reconnect to playing piano again without the use of her legs. Unfortunately, there is a negative to this drive that I could not see as I tried to navigate the waters of ministry alone.
I desperately clawed at trying to keep something from our old life alive...our ministry...it was within my own strength that I was functioning. Seeds of bitterness started to take root in my heart. After dwelling on the issue, I found that it seems to point me back to the simple fact that I am angry with God. How can I lead in ministry when I am not in good communion with God?
Even as I type this sentence, I feel guilt and shame even stating this truth. But I cannot hide or power my way through this reality. My way of connecting to God in church and community cannot look the same as it did before the accident. Praise God, we can still sing, play music, and lead people in lifting their voices to God. But I need to take time and redefine what being with God means.
Many faith issues stem from my upbringing and trying to relate to well-meaning Christians as we worked through the immediate emergency. After the accident, people came to me and stated that they had heard from God and that God would restore Vanessa's ability to walk. Heck, while Vanessa was in the hospital, I even attended a healing prayer service trying to petition God...even begging God…to restore my wife's ability to walk.
And this has created anger in my life toward God. Ok, God, you have talked to many about Vanessa walking again; I have had faith/prayed/did all that I could to follow you....and yet we are met with the answer...no...or at least not yet.
For the past six months, I have been good at reframing my anger with God for this unanswered prayer with what I believe deep within my soul is the truth; God is sovereign and knows best. This is, in many respects, the primary point of the Book of Job.
However, my anger is not gone and came to the surface again after the death of my Arkansas Mom. Questions I have been struggling with in my faith walk are still there, and I need to deal with my anger toward God. I know that the point of prayer isn't that we always get what we want. This is the prosperity, health and wealth gospel. God wants us to be in a relationship, daily walking with Him. Nothing more or less.
If you are looking at what God's call is in your life, go back and reread that sentence.
Unfortunately for me, I entangled this relationship to mean service…and that poses an issue. God wants my hands and has work for me to accomplish for the Kingdom; however, that is not the primary call. God first called me to walk in spirit and truth with Him. To give Him my heart. To present my life as a living sacrifice whole and acceptable as my true act of worship. It is way too easy for me to allow ministry, the weekly grind, to cloud my vision and personal relationship with God.
As I have spoken with my counselor, mentor, former pastor, and family throughout this path, everyone at some point or another has stated the following phrase: Jeff you're called right now to care for your wife and family. Don't push too hard, be present with your wife, and don't beat yourself up for not being able to do enough.
Again, I am slow at learning lessons. I intellectually knew this but could not see how my lousy ministry patterns prevented me from caring, learning, and growing together again with my wife.
After the death of my Arkansas Mom, her voice rings loudly in my ear, "Jeff, the things that matter most in life are your family. Not your vocation. Not what you do."
I guess seeing Jan in ICU and praying for a seemingly unanswered miracle took me to finally hear this calling in my life. For the new trauma of death to rattle the bag of emotions within me to feel, hear, and know better the will of God in my life.
God wants me to be - - - with him.
“For this season of life, God needs me to take care of my walk with Him and my wife.”
To wrap up a lengthy post, there is so much work to do that it sometimes feels paralyzing. But I know that with a good and solid support system in place, we will see the harvest God has for us during this new season of firsts in our life. I know that I have to slow down. That God is calling me to be again, not just do. God has placed me and Vanessa together for a reason, and I need to be present with my wife.
We have gone through a traumatic event, and that trauma will not just disappear out of sheer force. I have to spend intentional time focusing on recovering from our trauma. In fact, the more I try to use force to get out of the trauma, the more difficult I am making life for so many around me, even to the point of causing pain. I cannot have this outcome be the truth of who Jeff is.
Thank you all for your prayers and concerns for us, and please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we start/continue our journey together. Walking together through our trauma. Learning about The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of blazing this trail in life. Especially when that trail was not the one we had wanted, hoped, or dreamed of blazing.
To quote an inspirational figure in my life, Vanessa -our work is like the gardener. We need to come and find rest for our weary souls this season.
Verse 1
Come and find rest for your weary soul
leave your heavy yoke
come and find rest for your broken heart
find your life made whole
Verse 2
Work and find rest from your worries and cares
that choke and crowd your way
work and find rest, clear the weeds away
and pray for the seeds
Chorus
It will be finished, this field will be changed
not by your labor but by sun and rain
You work, and you toil, awaiting the day
the roots in the soil raise their harvest refrain
Verse 3
Come and rejoice in a good day’s work
together, in step with your neighbor
You have readied the field sleep is calling you
to come and find your rest
Bridge A
And the work goes on to the tune of the song
of the rain and the wind and the sunshine
We take our rest while the seeds in the dust
transform into life that rises up
Verse 4
You do your work but you don’t grow the seeds
Your burden is light, don’t yousee?
You work the soil but you don’t make the sound
of the voice calling life from the ground
Bridge B
And the work goes on to the tune of the song
of the rain and the wind and the sunshine
Glory, Be! Could it be true for me
from the dead I'll come alive
from the dead we'll come alive