Grit and Grace

“He made me this way. Why would He make me this way and then say it’s wrong to want what I want?”

That was Karlo’s major faith struggle. He walked away because he couldn’t understand why a ‘loving’ God would let anyone’s life be so miserable. The first time he realized that he liked men, he was mortified. He didn’t want it. He was a teenager at a new school, living in a different country, away from the rest of his family. He wanted to be ‘cool’, to have friends, to fit in, and he thought that being gay would lead to complications that he wasn’t ready to deal with.

Any sort of answer, even hypothetical ones, always led to dead ends. I gave up trying to find answers for him; it was really a conversation between him and God. He knew that because I openly said so. I told him that I wasn’t there to tell him what was right or wrong, that I didn’t have the answers to all the why’s, and that I didn’t have solutions to all his troubles. I was just there to walk with him through that turbulent road, just so that he wouldn’t be alone.

We used to have objective conversations from time to time when we talked as friends, not as husband and wife, and it felt so rewarding to get him to talk to me like he doesn’t have to tiptoe around fragile glass. In one of these conversations, I remember telling him that it seemed like he was living out of boxes, kind of like someone who moves houses so frequently that they don’t even bother unpacking anymore. My heart ached for him. I wanted him to have a home, to have a place where he felt and knew he belonged. During these dialogues, I felt like he unpacked a little bit more – the good, the bad, the ugly. And over time, I learned that I was able to accept him more, even when we didn’t always agree with each other.

I’m not some superhuman angelic being with a high tolerance for everything. I have always been bull-headed and temperamental, or at least I was, before I sincerely pursued my walk of faith with Jesus. With my relationship with Karlo, the one thing that held me together was grace.

I spent some time last night reading about grace before going to bed. It sounds like a plain enough word, like something you say before meals or another term to describe elegant movement. So I Googled it, searching specifically for its use in the context of Christianity. Simply defined, grace is “the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.” I wrote down other memorable quotes on grace in my (resurrected) journal:

“Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.”

“Grace is unconditional love toward a person who does not deserve it.”

“Grace is mercy, not merit.”

“Grace is the opposite of karma, which is getting what you deserve.”

And the source of this grace is God Himself, as shown in the life of Jesus. After witnessing all the crimes and depravity that humans are capable of, Jesus did not recoil in revulsion or distance Himself from the “unclean” ones. Instead, he sat with them, shared meals with them, let them feel that there was Someone who loved them still, and ultimately died on the cross so that we can all have a shot at going to Heaven when we die.  That is pure grace, and that was what I wanted to extend to Karlo, who has been avoiding God and faith and anything spiritual in the past 2 years or so.

I remember praying about it one time, asking God to MAKE him listen, to MAKE him turn his life back around but His answer in my heart was, “He is running away from Me, but he still listens to you.” Seriously, that wasn’t the answer that I was hoping for. I knew it was going to be an intensely challenging and emotionally draining task. It was going to be tough, but I made it my mission of sorts to keep the line of grace open in Karlo’s life.

My obedience to God’s will at that time forced me to grow – I had to reexamine my motives in all my interactions with Karlo and be mindful of my thoughts and words. I had to keep going back to the Bible (mostly 1 Corinthians 13:4-7) to measure my love against the only acceptable standard for me. Not pop culture, not relationship or self-help books, none of those things…I wanted my love for Karlo to replicate God’s love for me, so I knew which standard to choose.

I wanted nothing less than pure, untainted grace.  I wanted Karlo to remember what it felt like to have God’s grace carry him through the deepest valleys and how that same grace can help him soar through triumphs once again. And in order to do that, I had to draw from my own personal experiences of God’s saving grace. I am stubborn by nature, and I’d like to believe that God used my stubbornness as a starting point. Like a potter (Jeremiah 18:1-6) or a silver smith (Malachi 3:2-4), He built on it, reshaped and refined it until it turned into grit.

My grit comes from grace, nothing more, nothing less.

And I will continue to draw from that same grace to fuel my grit — this time, for my daughters and for myself.

Grief to Gratitude

Yesterday was Karlo’s 40^th day. I was reminded of this about a week ago, when the Feast of the Ascension was announced in our community chat group. In the Christian faith, the Ascension is the 40^th day after the Resurrection of Jesus. It was when Jesus had left the physical world, was taken up to heaven to take His seat at the right hand of God the Father. Catholics hold some sort of memorial for the 40^th day after death. I’m not sure what other Christian denominations do, but whatever it is, I feel like the event is more of a traditional thing meant to comfort the bereaved family. I don’t know if I’m supposed to do anything special or something new — I’ve already been praying for Karlo long before we separated, and I still think about him several times a day. What I did do was to kind of check in with myself and see if there were some thoughts or feelings that I’ve been dodging.

I’ve mostly gotten over the Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda’s by now and the grief has somewhat faded. I was honestly taken aback by how hard grief hit me in the first place because I thought I had successfully distanced myself emotionally from Karlo. We were in a neutral yet comfortable territory of co-parenting while reestablishing our friendship post separation. I asked him to stay here with us when we first caught wind of the government’s plans for an Enhanced Community Quarantine, and we were doing okay except that I frequently nagged him to take a shower (not always successful by the way…LOL! Sorry, Karl!). In any case, relationship-wise, we were okay.

What I had come to realize was that the grief that was unleashed was not just from his death, but from the whole experience of loving someone fully, to having to yield and let him go from my life, and THEN *actually* letting him go from this life onto the next. I played it so well and had hidden my scars from the past year, so that he wouldn’t drown in guilt and have a chance at finding his happiness. The finality of death and not having him around to be on the receiving end of my pain gave me the freedom to open Pandora’s box and just let it all out. It’s been cathartic.

I recently reposted something about a ball in a box hitting a pain button as a representation of grief and I would like to add that, at least for me, every time the ball hits the pain button, it loses some energy and shrinks a little. That’s what I’ve been doing in the past couple of weeks – I just let that ball hit that button over and over, as much as it wanted, until it has gotten smaller and smaller and has lost most of its force. So, yeah, I’m doing okay (so far).

The kids are doing even better. They have recovered far quicker that I did, and I sometimes worry that they might be in denial or something. But then I remember that I prayed for that, for God to protect their hearts, so I really shouldn’t be surprised. I’m chalking it up as an answered prayer. Sometimes, I start feeling guilty for going back to my usual routines and having good days, but didn’t I pray for my heart too? Guilt loses its grip when I remember Who is helping me get back on my feet.

Karlo will never be forgotten. He was and always will be a part of me. Like a reflex, I know how he would react to certain situations – how he would laugh at witty memes that we loved to send to each other, which kind of smile would light up his face whenever the kids did anything funny or adorable, how he would tease me when I’m obsessed over a new plant…he has left the physical world but still lives in my mind and in my heart.

My prayers have also evolved in the past weeks from praying for his soul to find peace, to thanking God for bringing him into my life. Like an ostrich getting its head out of the sand, I’m starting to look around, taking stock of the things that I need to get back to. It’s a pretty long list, but I know Jesus is looking over my shoulder at that list, and I trust Him to walk with me as I take baby steps, one day at a time.

• 

Judges 18:6 (NLT) — “Go in peace,” the priest replied. “For the LORD is watching over your journey.”

Grief bites, but it stings a little less each day

Grief.

I’ve lost the number of times I’ve been through it. Thrice from the death of significant people in my life, countless other times from the death of intangible things – dreams, plans, relationships…

My way of dealing with grief has changed over the years, but the pain is still the same, if not worse, with each new experience. My Mom passed away unexpectedly when I was 16, and I forced myself to breeze through mourning by keeping myself busy. Grief denial kept me functional, but repressed feelings surfaced from time to time at the most inconvenient instances. My Dad suddenly passed away 4 years ago and having learned my lesson, I was more open about how I felt. I think it helped give me that sense of closure. But now this. A week ago, I brought my husband home in an urn.

It didn’t matter that we had separated almost a year ago. It didn’t matter that I found ways to take care of our daughters when he was incapable of doing so. It didn’t matter that his prolonged hospital admissions felt like practice runs for this season that I am in now. It only mattered that when I saw him on the floor, all I could think of was that this man whom I valued above all didn’t think that his life was precious enough to be lived. I kept calling his name and I was surprised with myself — I never thought my own voice could sound so broken – but I couldn’t stop.

Every day for the past week, I’ve posted pictures and anecdotes to remember the man I fell in love with. The one who loved me back. Every night (or early morning), I cried until I felt like I’ve completely used up my day’s supply of tears. There were some pretty good memories in there. Quite a lot, actually. And when I felt like I was tired enough to sleep, I lay down and emptied my heart to God.

Yesterday, I finally mustered the strength to take a walk in the garden and check on my plants. I intentionally left my phone in the bedroom, so that I could lose a few hours without being conscious of the time. A couple of plants needed to be watered, so I grabbed the hose and started surveying the rest of the yard. There are a couple of spider plants lining the plant box at the far end of our garden. They’ve been there for years, so I was familiar with its pattern of growth and dormancy. It usually dies back in the summer when the weather is too hot and remains dormant as small tubers under the ground. I once tried to “cheat” it out of its cycle by watering it as regularly as I could. It would sprout a few new leaves, but it often ended up dying back again. I gave up and decided to let nature take its course.

When I checked that part of the garden, I was surprised to see a couple of healthy leaves poking out of the earth. I walked the rest of the way and saw that each plant had sprouted new leaves. I’ve been watering these guys almost daily for a while and nothing happened, but it rained like what, 3 or 4 days ago, and now they are coming to life. I found it odd yet strangely comforting, because the first thing that came to my mind was, “Iba talaga ‘pag si Lord ang nag-alaga”. I thought that maybe there were parts of the plant that I couldn’t reach with my watering, but the rain soaked through the earth and was able to penetrate the deeper layers.

And then I thought of Karlo, of how much I tried so hard to nurture him and make him feel loved in the 7 years that we shared together. He was at the point where he had accumulated years and years of feeling repressed and rejected, that he had started to doubt the goodness of God. I remember telling him several times that I would show him I can still love and accept him, even from afar, even if I didn’t agree with where he was going. I told him I wanted to keep loving and forgiving him no matter how much it hurt, so that if he can feel truly loved by just one person in this world, then he would have to concede that there is a God who is capable of so much more. He would have to believe in my God, the God of love, because without Him loving me first, I wouldn’t be able to move past the hurt to embrace someone who wanted to turn his back on me. I have always been intensely protective of Karlo, which is why it’s hard for me to talk about everything that happened in the past year. Despite everything that he said and did, all I could see was this conflicted boy, aching to be accepted for who he was.

As I browsed through the photos in my hard drive and both our phones, I noticed that he started looking slightly different. I couldn’t pinpoint what the changes were, but they were there. This past year, he looked like he was slowly eroding into a more wounded version of himself and never got back to his usual self. The aching boy was still there, and he showed up once in a while. Those were the only times that I hugged him again, to let him know that I was still there for him.

As I remember my futile attempts to revive the spider plants in our backyard, I thought about my repeated efforts at bringing back the Karlo that I loved. What I strived so hard to give him was merely a taste of the unconditional love that he is experiencing now. None of his deeper wounds will be able to escape that. And now, sometime between the end of the day and the beginning of another, I will go to sleep thinking, “Iba talaga ‘pag si Lord ang nag-alaga.”

 

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 — ‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’  

Revelation 21:4 — ” ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Psalms 127:1 — ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.’