the paradox.

I've always liked the concept of a paradox. My context of them is mostly beginning and ending with Jesus work in the Kingdom. My favorite Bible stories are the ones that involve someone's biggest shame becoming the very thing that propels them into historical fame. It feels like something inside of me lives for those hidden truths, buried deep within the absurd contradictions. Grief has given me a paradox that is not quite as lived for. It's a much weightier paradox.

A few months ago my dearest Jessica-friend and I were patiently waiting our turns to sit in the magical chairs that turned our faces and hairs into artwork! While we waited, drinking coffee and eating pizza (like all good bridesmaids do) our Katy-friend told us of an amazing thing that one of her customers did for our friend's little girl. It was extravagant and girlie and giggle-producing and tear-jerking. Jess and I stared at each other laughing at the extravagance and crying at the circumstance. This amazing thing would not be a thing had our Mallory been here.

Living. Breathing. Paradox. 

There in the "you should be here" moments are absurd moments of joy and light that shoulder a weight only matched by Jesus-presence. Joy is light, airy, flitting from sunbeam to sunbeam. Joy in grief has weight to it, like swinging an old, wooden axe. It anchors the verse "the joy of the Lord is my strength" to a very real feeling. This isn't 5lb dumbbell strength. This is Samson strength. It's strength that has been refined resisting the weightiness of brokenness. 

Today we celebrated my son's birthday. I am terribly prone to procrastinating so any sort of at-my-home event comes with a bit of last-minute stressing. Today was weightier. Heavier. Not quite in my throat, but close enough that I knew tears needed to come. 

So as any mother of a small child in the midst of having people over for a birthday party would do... I took a shower to secure 15 minutes of erin-time. 

I needed Jesus and I needed to know what was weighing on my chest. I prayed a simple prayer...  "let me feel it, all of it." Old erin would not have prayed this prayer. Instead she would have clenched her jaw, run through the string of reasons as to why this should not hurt and will not hurt, and when the fear of an emotional onset had subsided, go about her day. I did not trust the Jesus hearing my prayer and I definitely didn't trust the emotion I was asking him to unleash. Today I do. 

Let me feel it, all of it. Something's not right, please show me.

And there it was.. words, accompanied by a vision, tied to a memory, and the tears.

One year ago we celebrated my Little's first birthday. Having never thrown him a party before, we chose to have it Sunday evening after church services. The (electronic) invitations were sent, the procrastinating motivation was kicking into high gear, and the text messages were starting to roll in. One coming from my Mallory-friend. She and her husband were in full swing preparing to open our newest campus in Midtown and that Sunday was a 4 o'clock in the morning wake up. She didn't trust her 3 year old running on no-nap to be a civil party goer and apologetically texted she wouldn't be making it. Knowing what my 1 year old looked like with early mornings and no naps I completely understood.

"Besides this isn't his last party. We have a lifetime of birthday parties to go."

There was the thing. Jesus found the thing and I found the feeling, all of it. The chest crushing sobs, the tangible hole in my heart, all of it. A year ago we didn't know three tumors had formed in her brain. We didn't know that a seven year war was about to be eternally won (Jesus won that by the way, just to be sure there is no confusion on that point). A year ago when I stood in my kitchen and casually typed out those words I had no idea that this was in fact her only Charlie-party. 

Today, I belly laughed in the grass under an actual throng of giggling, tackling children. Today, I wept in a shower. Both/And. Both full of laughs and full of tears. Full of happiness and full of sorrow. Full of joy because I am full of grief. Choosing joy in the midst of grief, because the source of my grief lived choosing joy. 

Jesus is a both/and King. He knows the duality of what I felt today. He lived fully man and fully God. Feeling the fullness of joy and the fullness of brokenness simultaneously, every moment of every day. I am thankful that in his living he leads me to embrace the paradox. It was his kindness that brought me to "let me feel it, all of it" not my spiritual maturity. It was his kindness that mined out those 365 day old words that I was mourning just below the surface. It is kindness because my heart is no long mourning in the dark. In his kindness he brought my sister at the right moment to shoulder the weight as she held me in my crying. Kindness. 

Grief is a lifelong process (I'm assuming) of finding those in-the-dark mourning places and flooding them with Light and tears. It is a paradox. Down in the depths of deepest grief is an unyielding, never-giving-up, always able to find one more ounce of "umph" joy that thunders with every step. Today I felt it. The both/and of all of it.