Chillin' With Lemonade

I can not express how much this weekend meant to me. How comforting to belong. How comforting to be still and be able to grieve. How wonderful to be able to lean into our grief, rather than run from it. How encouraging to be able to reach for hope and joy.

This is my second Widows Retreat. My dear friend, Elizabeth founded Soul Widows and organized this incredible retreat in the beautiful mountains of Tryon, NC. It is a place to be supported and to be free to speak of grief. It is not a conference, held at a hotel or a place you can get lost in the craziness and noise. I could speak all day about how wonderful the retreat was, but my friend Bunny writes it much, much better.

Here’s a picture of the embracing alcove where we met daily for comfort and encouragement. 6 widows(one even from Alaska) sat and were able to share their stories, talk about their pain, process through their emotions and be encouraged to reach for joy. I was the “oldest” widow in my two years, until the last day when a widow of 21 years came to share her story. I wanted to hug each of them and tell them, “you can do this. you have got to fight and it will be so worth the fight. Joy does come in the mourning.”

Art therapy with Bitter Betty ( i say that with saracasm, The Founder Elizabeth, and the Fierce Fairy, our therapist)

Quilts hung all over Marilyn’s Melrose Inn. Beautiful quilts.

Come next time, ok?

I shared my testimony for my Bible study small group tonight. Here’s what I pretty much shared…

When I found out that we would be talking about Joy this semester, I almost immediately asked Daniel if I could share my testimony. My testimony is about fighting for Joy. I thought I had lost it and would never have it again. I wasn’t sure where to begin, so yesterday I spent the day going through old journals and pictures. It was incredibly hard to read those entries where my joy was lost. I procrastinated a lot putting these words together because I knew it would be so hard.

So, I’ll start from the beggining, but most of my story revolves around one incident that shaped my life forever. We’ll get there, though.

I grew up in Raleigh, NC in a loving family. I grew up going to church and knew all the Bible stories. I went to VBS and went on mission trips. However, I believe I really started to get who Jesus was and what it meant to have a true relationship with Christ while I was in college. My boyfriend introduced my to him. Let me tell you about him.

I met HeeJun in high school. We were in the same clique. He was in all my classes my sophomore year and I decided he was going to be my boyfriend. We dated all through high school and college. He went to UNCC and I went to ECU. His freshman year in college, he had two guys in his dorm that shared the gospel with him. He went to a Christmas conference his freshman year and came back talking about Jesus and having a relationship with Christ. He was talkign about truly experiencing Christ. It freaked me out. He wrote in his journal “As I am lying here on the beach at night admiring God and all He is, I will never forget the way I experienced God tonight. God showed himself to me so vividly and so much things at once I can’t even recall it all I almost came to tears by the power of his Love. He loves me unfathomable. I never knew how people could say I would lay my life down but I realize today that he is my all and that I will lay down everything for him. I want to stay there inside the veil of his arm at his feet praising him and not go back into the world. How amazing is my Savior”. I kinda thought he was in a cult. However, he continued to share the Gospel with me. He told me later that he prayed for me daily and said that he had determined that he would wait a year and continue praying for me. He prayed that I would receive Christ or he would know that we were not meant to be together.

I went to a Christmas Conference with him the next year. I went just to be with him on New Years. When I walked into that place, I saw people had their hands in the air, praising God. They were talking about knowing Jesus and having a real relationship with him. I wanted that. So, on a rooftop in Atlanta with people ringing in the New Year, HeeJun and I prayed together and I count that as the time I turned my life towards Christ.

Fast forward through college and campus ministry; HeeJun and I got married on May 3, 2003. We wanted the focus to be on Christ. We wanted our relationship to be a “reflection of Christ’s love and grace for us”. I moved to Charlotte and started working at Alexander Youth Network….and… The first year of marriage was ridiculously hard. They don’t tell you that stuff in marriage counseling. I became a person I hated. Very selfish. It took a lot of prayer to get through that. HeeJun wrote ” God has answered every prayer that I had. Funny. God is more faithful to me that I am to myself. What do I have to fear. God is in control and has a plan for my future, my job, my wife, my friends. Man he has a plan for it and it is much greater than my own. i can not think of one incident where You have let me down not one. bc you are so good to me so good. You are my King you are my Lord. You are in control God. Point the way and I will go without question. i live for eternity…God is my hope his unfailing love is my hope”. That is what we held on to and placed our foundation.

We tried for 2 years to start a family. In 2008, I had a miscarriage. At that point in my life, it was the hardest thing that had happened to me. Still, my faith never waivered. I knew God was in control and that HeeJun and I would have little Asian babies. I remember walking into the hospital to have the surgery and I froze. HeeJun put his hand on my back and pushed me compassionately down the hall. He had such courage and faith that it would be okay. I hold on to that.

August 2008, we went on an Alaskan cruise. It was incredible. We were so happy (other than my obssession over Starbucks coffee, which almost ruined the whole trip). We came back from Alaska, and we were on fire. HeeJun was so relaxed and excited about work. I knew was going to be pregnant. We were in a good place.

August 9, 2008 HeeJun went on a motorcycle ride up to Morganton. For about 4 years HeeJun had been so into motorcycles. At one point we had three motorcycles and a corvette in our garage! He rode up the mountains almost every Saturday. He was very safe and people have told me now that they wanted to ride with HeeJun because he could teach them new techniques and safety tips. So, on this day he was riding with a group of friends and some new riders. I went shopping that afternoon. I came home and saw the troopers parked outside my house. I didn’t think anything of it. I even made a joke to my meighnor, “what did we do this time”. I went inside to put the groceries up. They rang my doorbell. I was worried about the shirt I was wearing. They came in and told me to sit down.They told me that it was bad. I thought it was a joke. I kept screaming that they were joking. HeeJun had been in an accident. He must have seen something and put on his brakes. Lost control of flew into an embankment with trees. His friends said they thought he would just have some broken bones. The troopers said they had never seen such a tragic accident with someone wearing so much safety gear.

If you know anything about grief, you know it is not in stages. It comes in waves. Waves of panic, and sobbing, and anger. I was just so hurt and confused. I doubted everything I believed. I wondered if HeeJun would have loved God if he had know this was going to happen. I thought God must have hated me or wanted to punish me for becoming so selfish. I searched for the Truth. I searched for if God really loved me. I looked up every verse on love. Every verse I looked up, HeeJun had already underlined.

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk though the fire, you will not be burned… For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” ~Isaiah 43:2-3

“I have loved you with an everlasting love, I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt. Again you will take your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful.” ~Jeremiah 31:3-4

I had to fight for my joy back. It would have been so easy to crawl into that dark, hopeless hole. It was a fight every day to get out of bed. I woke up every morning and yelled the F- bomb. I fought with His truth. I reminded myself daily, hourly that God was weeping with me. That he had plans for me, that I would dance again. Even though I was not happy, I could have Christ’s joy. The night of HeeJun’s death I prayed that he would come back to me in a dream and I remember thinking that he’s really busy right now rejoicing with his Savior. Now, that’s joy. Knowing we will rejoice with our savior one day.

I remember a specific day where the walls were broken down. I was at church, hands crossed, not wanting to hear that God loved me. I wanted to stand up and scream Bull when the pastor said to trust Christ. Then Brandon began to play It is Well. I could feel the tears coming. My chest tightening. The weight was unbearable. April came and put her hand on my shoulder and I lost it. Poor April. Her shirt was covered with tears and snot. I sobbed and I knew it was time to fight. I knew I had to get my joy back and I knew God had been with me this whole time.

In the past few months, I have truly seen that God is giving me back my joy and hope. He has been with me this whole time. He is healing me and comforting me.I found this quote on my blog and thought I should read it. It pretty much describes what I meant to say…

“Grieving like a Christian does not mean we do not grieve. It means we grieve without despair. We crawl into our Father’s lap and lay our tear-stained cheeks on His shoulder, and trust that what He ordains is always right, will always work out well in the end, and that all our losses will one day be restored to us. It is running to Him and asking, “Tell me again the story of what You have done and what You will do to destroy this enemy.” It is going to Him and asking for the strength and comfort we need to face the new reality of our temporary, mortal lives–a reality without someone we have grown to love, without someone we are used to having as a part of our lives and perhaps mistakenly assumed would always be there. It is knowing that although there is loss, all is not lost.
God does not tell us we will not have sorrows. He tells us that He will be our comfort in sorrow. He does not tell us we will not have tears. He tells us He will be there with us to wipe our tears away. He does not tell us there will not be times to mourn. He tells us that on the other side of that mourning is the promise of joy indescribable.”

Soul Widows Retreat

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