'Cause Everybody Hurts Sometimes

I was on a hike recently.  It was a Sunday afternoon and we had some time before our evening service so a hike seemed like a wonderful thing to do.  The sky was a brilliant blue and the leaves were bedecked in a colourful display.  The closest hike trail to my home is a rail trail so that is where I headed with our trusty yellow lab and my trusty 4 children.  We spilled forth from the car, untangled ourselves from the dog's leash, rearranged our jackets and set out.  The thing about rail trails is that they tend to be very straight and the same and just lack sweeping vistas, fallen trees to climb, mossy ponds to explore and an abundance of wildlife.  Therefore they are not my favourite flavour of hike; apparently my feelings have been shared and absorbed and my children are becoming a similar flavour of hiking-snob.
"This is not a real hike," Donovan snorted kicking at the gravel (GRAVEL!) path.
"There's no where to go but straight..."  Liam dragged out the word so that the word "straight" became a word synonymous with "SO-BORING".....I even thought I saw his eyes beginning to work an eye-roll but he is only 10 and hasn't yet perfected that disdainful gesture......something to do with a direct correlation of the gravitational pull on eyes and the teenaged years, I've heard.
"I'm tired.  My legs are broken.  I can't walk."  This from my four-year-old Lochlan who has decided that feeling tired or just not wanting to walk means that his legs are broken.  This is very hilarious when you are not the one faced with the prospect of carrying said grumpy, tired 4-year-old along with holding onto the leash of uber hyper Lab puppy whose legs are definitely not broken and who is definintely not tired but is hurling himself with high energy and speed in any direction.
"Mom, can we go on a real hike?" whined Gwen; adding to the sour harmony of disquiet and discontent on a hike that was supposed to bring peace.

Sometimes hikes are like that.
Sometimes days are like that.
Sometimes life is like that.

Peppered along the straight, boring rail trail are park benches.  Beautifully arranged and situated where the view does open up and where one can take a moment to enjoy it and rest.  I came close to one and noticed a plaque; a plaque inscribed with the same text that has been inscribed on my heart and on my life these last few months especially.

"God is my refuge and strength, a very-present help in trouble"  Psalm 46: 1

A text that has become our school theme, family theme and that keeps popping up like God is reminding our family again and again and again and again......that He IS our refuge; He IS our strength and He IS there in the midst of this trouble that we are in.

I saw that text sitting there on the park bench and I felt God, not just in the sweet autumn scents of the fresh fall air, not just in the twitterings of birds swooping overhead, not just in the colourful leaves floating down on streams of autumn air.....but I felt God in His words:
"I am your refuge, I am your stength, I am very-present in the midst of trouble"

It's so comforting to be assured of God's presence in days of turmoil isn't it?
Here is the plaque:

Look closely.  read the text.  Lovely, right.  Now notice that this is not just for me but rather dedicated to a little girl, a "little angel called back to heaven."
Ugh.

I read and snapped a picture of it on my phone and thoughts kept swirling around my head.  Soon, my lovely 4 blessings and our energetic dog wrestled our way back to our car and drove home.  I felt unsettled.  Comforted by God's words that I had found on a hike, but unsettled nonetheless.

My cancer diagnosis hurts.  It hurts because of the way it is so terrifying to hear Cancer associated with my name.  It is terrifying because of the uncertainties this brings to my family life.  I want to be a strong parent for my beautiful children and my wonderful husband but there are days when I am bed-ridden and cannot be.  It is terrifying because I don't know what God has planned in the long run for me and my family.   And I worry about them.....my babies....
But my hurt is not alone.
Look at that plaque.
A family hurts because a loved one is gone....
They are not alone....
A beloved loved one whose years-long disease eroded all natural chances of childbearing and now she and her husband ache for babies that never came....
They are not alone....
I have seen depression lead loved ones to feel that the only way that they can bring joy to their families is by erasing themselves.......violent suicide..
They are not alone...
A beloved friend saw her brother pass away from cancer and then she was diagnosed with cancer one month later...
She is not alone....
A young mother waved good bye to her husband; he took some interested buyers on a test drive of his truck.  She never saw him alive again...
She is not alone...
A father's cancer is back.  He is in so much pain but bravely faces more treatments...
He is not alone...
Isis...
Hurricanes..

Today the rain drops streak all my house windows like giant tears from heaven and I think that if there is one thing that unites us all, it is suffering.

Death sorrow sadness uncertainty grief hot tears falling down down down

We all hurt sometimes, don't we?  You can add your list of sorrows to mine.  Our list will be long.  Watch the news and add some more.
Our world is not a comfortable place to be in.  It is broken and uncertain.

These are the thoughts I had when I saw that plaque.

And then I began to hear in my mind the opening lines to an old song that struck a melancholic chord in my once teenaged mind....remember R.E.M.?  (the band?)  They released this song in 1993, I believe, and it is called "Everybody Hurts".  The tempo is slow, low,  and it will resonate with you especially if you are feeling hurt.
The music video is excellent.  A car pulls up to a traffic jam and the camera begins to sweep over all the cars and the individuals inside the car.  Subtitles offer the watcher a glimpse of the thoughts of all these car-bound people.   They are not a happy bunch.
"Stop singing stop singing stop singing" thinks one teenaged boy
"She is gone" ruminates an old man with red-rimmed eyes
"No one can see me" contemplates a lip-sticked woman as she glances side to side.
It is a video that illustrates so much of life.  We are all on a journey in this life.  We exist within the bubbles we have created - us, our family, maybe some friends - and so often we feel at a standstill, stuck, mired perhaps in sorrows or hurt or grief but certainly in loneliness.

The song's climax or crescendo is when one of the R.E.M. guys steps out of his car and begins belting out "HOLD ON HOLD ON HOLD ON HOLD ON....." and while his voice echoes over the stalled traffic, car doors open and everyone steps out and begins walking together.  No longer isolated in their cars, they move forward.

I love the imagery of this song.  We suffer in this life, but we are NOT alone.  There are those suffering alongside us.  With us.  We suffer in this life and feel stuck, unable to move forward but when we reach out and allow others to walk with us, we can move.
R.E.M. belts out "hold on" and it always troubled me that they don't mention what we should hold on to and that brings my brain-thinkings full circle to that plaque. You know, the one in the above photograph that I found on my rail trail hike?

God.
After all, He is the one who peppers my life with people.  Family.  Friends.  Church family.  Neighbours.  Random people met in random places.  Old friends that I haven't seen in years.  When we step outside of the bubble of our life and share our pain and sorrows, the load is lighter and we can move forward.

God is my refuge.  I can hide in my confidence that He has a plan in all this.  I am significant.  You are significant.  if you are here, He has a job, a place, a love for you and me.  He's not done with us yet!

God is my strength.  He gives me strength through His words and even puts His words where He is sure I will read them.....on a hike!  God is obvious.  Do you see Him?  Do you hear Him?

God is my ever-present help in trouble.  I'm in trouble.  My hair keeps falling out, I am tired and cranky, and sometimes I worry about what the future will bring.  God is always there to reassure me.  In fact, He constantly does with all the people around me.  My kitchen is completely filled with cards of people thinking of and praying for my family.

Are you in trouble?
Do you hurt?

Everybody does sometimes.

Let's reach out to one another.  Lift each other up the way God wants us to.  Hold on to each other and hold on to Him.

This blog is dedicated to Herman Faber.  I saw Herman in the chemo suite yesterday and Paul and I hugged Herman and his wife, Joanne.  Herman had cancer 13 years ago, beat it but then it came back.  Despite recent chemo and treatments, the cancer prevails.   It prevails but it will not win, Herman.  Hold on.  Hold on to God and to all those people in your path; they are there from God to help carry you through.

This blog is dedicated to all those who hurt.  You know who you are.  Someday, God will dry every one of our tears; and I have a LOT , so I will be keeping Him busy for a while; but you will have your turn!

Today marks the halfway point of my chemotherapy treatments.  In fact, today was the last of the "red devil" chemo.  Only four more chemo rounds to go!  I am happy, I am....underneath the melancholy and the anxiety; the fears for tomorrow and the tears for today.

Everybody hurts and today I am taking a small turn.
But I am holding on....don't worry.

Do me a favour.  Hold on too.  Let's pray for each other.
God bless,
Brigette