Unexpected healing for a hurting family

My brother’s stroke set off a tidal wave of panic and chaos back in Florida where he was hospitalized. Yet, the disaster sirens blasted inside me. My family’s tsunami-response has a way of resurrecting and exacerbating hidden, unresolved hurts. 

The powerful swell threatened to overtake me and swallow me up. When considering an emergency visit to Florida, I was more fearful of the force of family frenzy consuming me than about my brother’s recovery. One can manage a recovery process. But how does one navigate a family tidal wave, except to avoid being in its path? I telephoned my brother from afar.

Besides, what good could a visit from me do?

I am not prone to insert myself where I am not invited. A similar tentativeness crosses over into my coaching business as well. I have avoided marketing myself as a personal coach because that seems too pushy. A marketing coach recently reframed self-promotion as, “getting to know me, like me and trust me.” That sounded inviting instead of invasive. In considering going to Florida, I needed an invitation to outweigh this familiar chaos that triggered my anxiety.

Go willingly with the attitude to help bear another’s burden in crisis.

My son and daughter-in-law listened as I shared concern for my brother. “He cannot form his thoughts into comprehensible sentences. His finances are a mess. He is a contentious guest at my sister’s house. My sister almost lost it when she had to send a letter on his behalf because she had no stamps or envelopes,“ I lamented.

Daughter-in-law tentatively spoke up, “When I am overwhelmed,” she said, “sometimes I just want someone to swoop in and take care of it for me, even when it’s hard for me to ask for help.” Hearing that, I had my reason to jump back into the surge. Perhaps, my invitation was that I could be of help.

Working together enhances the healing process.

In Florida, my siblings and I locked arms together on our brother’s behalf. Waters were turbulent but we rode the waves. We searched, sorted, telephoned, documented, prioritized, and filed all the issues into categories. And we rebuked, listened, affirmed, accepted, apologized and laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe. Amidst the debris we discovered traces of compassion. I thought it was just my brother who needed healing after his stroke. In the midst of working together, I caught a glimpse of how God was already at work in each one of us.

Willpower exhausts itself but trusting in 

God’s great love for us emboldens us 

to face adversity with sustaining hope and faith.

Occasionally I would be pulled under by the strength of the current but could bob back up to the surface…exhausted.  Overcome by the details of disaster, I doubted family myself, and the power of God. My friends’ invitation to dinner offered welcome respite from swimming against the current. The instant we were seated at the restaurant table my fear and frustration gushed out and onto my friends.  They listened. When my grumbling gush ran out of steam, one friend responded, “I will pray for you.” His words secured the dam and contained the waters.

Words from the biblical apostle James wafted past me, “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” My friend had intervened to ask and believe on my behalf. I was grateful.

My thoughts shifted direction like a repentant thief caught red-handed. Clarifying words from Dr. Henry Cloud challenged me, “Repentance,” writes Cloud, “is the change involved when we face the truth about ourselves.” Maybe this journey was not about willful and defensive maneuvers against tidal waves but about engaging trust when disaster strikes.

In Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning writes, “In the midst of tragic events that leave us bereft of understanding, trust does not demand explanations but turns to the One who promised, ‘I will not leave you orphans.’ (John 14:18)  Manning’s simple prayer appeals to my lack of trust, “Jesus, by your grace I grow still for a moment and I hear you say, ‘Courage? It’s me! Don’t be afraid’. I place my trust in your presence and your love. Thank you.”

The more we are healed, the more we can be 

genuinely generous with others.

My family has known me to insulate myself with distance and resistance. Fear and self-protection wanted to hold me back. But my call to grow was for the real me—the swimmer—to show up…with family. God has honored my yielding to this intentional process of healing over the past couple of years. As my swimming has grown stronger, I can jump into an ocean of conflict and not sink. So now my sister calls more often; she trusts that I won’t judge her. And my brother acknowledged my apology. He expressed his response with thoughtful acceptance, “I...I know…I have another…uh…a second chance.”

What a tsunami threatened to destroy, God intended to heal. He loves me and my family that much. When I was hell-bent on dodging any family business, God tossed me right into the middle of it. After all, my family business IS God’s business. And I’m absolutely blown out of the water that He would entrust me with His business…to turn around and help others grow.

Am I the only one with family tidal waves?

Holey, Wholly, Holy

My brother was born more than 60 years ago with a hole in his heart. I do not ever recall my family being curious about the condition of my brother’s heart. “Maynard has a hole in his heart” was as common a remark as “It’s raining today”. This unexplained declaration was attached to Maynard like those annoying pillow tags that warn not to remove for fear of unknown punishment.

“The doctor said his traumatic delivery caused the hole,” my mother recently admitted. Mom remembered Maynard’s hole with guilt. My father viewed the hole as something to overcome and challenged Maynard’s small wiry frame throughout Little League. The rest of us thought our brother was fun and mischievous. But we quickly became wise to his Huck Finn charm that would often involve one of us four siblings.

Since Maynard was a self-appointed captain of baseball or tackle football in the neighbor’s yard, I would often be his first-draft choice…the youngest, and the only girl. Then he’d position me on first base or as wide receiver. How did a boy with a hole in his heart make others feel like their heart could burst?

Despite his hole or maybe because of his hole, Maynard was the first adventurous one to leave the family nest for strenuous work on a cargo ship. I was in seventh grade when he left home, not too long after our mom ran away. Maynard sent me postcards from foreign places…like Michigan and Wisconsin. One time he sent me a fancy yellow dress with a note included: “I think it’s time for you to start dressing like a girl.” With tender recollections of my eldest brother, I wore a bright yellow dress to his memorial service recently.

More than twenty years ago, Maynard and his third wife moved in with my own family for a season while my husband and I were managing a ski area restaurant. Maynard was hired as an experienced bartender…and then frantically studied in the evenings to learn how to mix drinks. Everyone in town knew Maynard the bartender. I was known as Maynard’s little sister.

Our two boys adored their uncle Maynard who teased them with his stinky feet and shoes. We would unabashedly toss his shoes outside our loft window onto the roof where they could breathe…and we could too. Amused, he snorted his nasally laugh like the cartoon dog, Muttley. A young friend once commented, “Maynard…makes me think of a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard.” Yet, Maynard’s Muttley snicker always disarmed any innocent mockery of his uncommon name. Very little would offend Maynard or his heart.

Earlier this year Maynard and I were sharing rides with one another during a visit to Florida. I was often shivering in the air-conditioned indoors and needed some kind of sweater. So we popped into Goodwill where each of us scouted for practical bargains. Maynard delighted in finding some slightly-worn dress shoes and a few name-brand shirts that golfers wear. I found a sensible green sweater and tried it on. “How does this look, Mayne?”

“It’s okay, but this time,” he said within earshot of two elderly shoppers, “I think you should pay for it instead of walking out of the store like you did the last time. Really, Kid, you need to quit doing that.” The two ladies raised their eyebrows at one another and then shot a disapproving glance toward me. Maynard strutted out of the store in his newly purchased shoes wearing a big grin. I followed carrying my sweater in a bag with my visible receipt in hand.

Through the years, Maynard and I have had many telephone conversations. It seems like we would take turns listening and coaching one another…about relationships and parenting and faith.  We communicated as equal adults, not necessarily as big brother and little sister. And it was during these conversations that I developed a curiosity about the condition of Maynard’s heart. I often wondered if the hole widened when our mother left years ago. And how does a damaged heart cope with — or even contribute to — Maynard’s multiple marriages, job-hopping, financial struggles and single-parenting challenges? But on the surface, Maynard was everyone’s friend, a caring brother, and an indulgent father. I will miss him, his humor, his thoughtfulness and our conversations.

Today I am confident that Maynard’s hole in his heart has been wholly restored…or more accurately, holy restored. However, recollections of my brother challenge me. I’ve noticed lately that I have avoided stepping into key positions—like first base or wide receiver—for several years. Like my brother’s heart, I bear scars from the past. I have been hesitant about exposing myself to the tackles and line-drives of engagement. Now, however, “I’m open! I’m open!” is directed towards God the Healer who revives what Maynard the Quarterback began.