There was a time when we felt that the only word we heard from God was, “no.” It was painful. We learned all the lessons they teach you in Sunday School about being refined by fire. But in real time. There was nothing romantic about it. Not even the promise of gold.
We were disoriented.
We were lost.
We just kept walking doggedly forward.
That was four years ago now. And one of the places we passed through en route to starting over was the home I’m sitting in today. With my brother and sister-in-law. It’s cold now like it was then and I remember how well they loved us without actually using words. Because sometimes words are too difficult to say. Sometimes you’re just not ready to dissect what you’ve been through. Sometimes you need both more and less than the words.
We’d been two years in Ukraine where we’d slept on a mattress little more than two wadded up blankets.
We’d been two years in South Africa where we’d house-hopped.
It’d been over four years since we’d seen any of the furniture we bought when we were first married. Four years since we’d had anything permanent. And most of it was stored in Chris and Jill’s basement. When we arrived out of the dark and cold of the Wisconsin night they were up and waiting for us.
Jackson was barely turned one and battling off a terrible flu from the climate adjustment. I was sick with the loss of home and we were adrift on the grace of others for what would come next. We had been sleeping badly for weeks and were anticipating an inflatable mattress or the couch.
Jill led us downstairs to the basement as I carried the dead weight of Jack and anticipated a long, sleepless night of him throwing up and Pete and I taking it in turns to re-inflate the mattress, wash him down, and try again for a few more hours of rest. But at the bottom of the stairs was home. At the bottom of the stairs was the bed Pete and I had bought as newly weds and only slept on for two years of our nearly six years of marriage.
“I thought you might like to sleep on your own bed,” Jill had said.
She’d set it up for us in all its king-size glory. Wrapped in fresh sheets and layered with comforters and blankets and down pillows it was waiting on us. Something melted inside of me. Something hard and angry. As I put Jackson into the bed and sank down into its depths something crushing my heart shifted and I could breathe.
We all three slept in that bed for nigh on ten hours straight and everyone had more than enough room.
That dark basement welcomed us into a place outside of time zones and failure and the bed accepted us back into its bosom and rocked us through the night. Held in the embrace of family without a word being said.
Pete and I return to that same bed tonight. We fly home from visiting Chris and Jill five years and two kids later and we will sink into that very same mattress. It has seen tears and love and milk spilled from a hundred bottles drunk by baby boys in the dark watches of the night. It has heard rebukes and prayers and desperate dreams for the future. That bed cradles my growing belly and the baby girl that is coming to us. That bed has lost frame and headboard and shape over the years as it has molded into us and we into it.
We may have bought that bed in South Bend, Indiana but it was given to us on a cold winter night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The best re-gifting ever
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Love this post a gazillion times over! Happy New Year, Lisa Jo!
And welcome home!
Wow, GM, you write a lot!
Every time I see there is another post by you in my inbox, I think, gees, I don’t have time right now. So I might leave it for later. Some times I think, let me skip this one, I’ll get the next, but then I don’t, and glad of it, and then I am stopped in my tracks and deeply moved again!
I don’t know how you do it, but keep on!
Dankie dat jy aanhou lees! Maar moenie sleg voel om nou en dan die “delete” te hit. Ek sal heeltemal verstaan, :)
Love, love, Love IT!! And probally because I can relate so much. I have a brother and sister in law who we have stayed with multiple times in between our moves, and trecks accross country, with kids and without kids…we know their door is always .
I am new to the blogging world and your blog. I love it so far and cant wait to read more
Such beautiful words about no words. You made me feel I was right there with you. Wish I really could be today–I’d happily sleep on the couch!
Wow. Very few times do I see a blog post that just leaves me stunned at it’s subtle power and beauty but this is one of them.
Hi Jason –
Thank you. Truly.
Beautiful. Nearly cried.
What precious love!
Oh, that almost made me cry–and I’m not usually a crier! Maybe it’s because my love language is gifts and acts (not words!) but that is just so beautiful! Beautiful thoughts and such a kind and beautiful act of love. Thanks for sharing.
Oh I bet you are a blessing to your family then! It’s a powerful love language, isn’t it?
What a blessing to have family who understands how to meet our needs. My husband is from Milwaukee & I had my first apartment there too – only 375 sq ft – had an old school murphy bed & I loved every cramped inch of it!
Go Badgers! :)
Having lived and travelled and muddled through countries and God’s No’s myself and recently…your post brings tears to my eyes and I truly “get” it about the bed….something so simple, such a beautiful gesture in a moment needed is greater than any words could have been in that moment. Thanks for you “well-travelled” words of wisdom!
I love that bed more than words can truly do justice. And yes, I think it’s especially because of all the miles and years in between moments we’ve actually slept in it!
I wish I had no clue what you were talking about Gypsy Mama.
God Bless you and yours!!
love it. Oh, that God would give my heart eyes to see how to meet people’s needs like that. thank you so much for sharing.
I know, right? I feel the same way. It was powerful lesson on how to love others in actions when usually I get so bogged down in words. I’m still learning it years later.
Beautifully written, Lisa-Jo! I love it!
Oh Lisa-Jo! It amazes me how I relate to your journey…it was just last night at 11pm we rolled into our home (for the next 5 months at least) after 2 days and 1000 miles traveling ‘home’ from our growing up ‘home’ with the very few things we have bought ourselves, but this one we will ship across the ocean and a few others, because they belong to us…and our bed, which is king-sized, is just as you describe yours. After nearly 3 weeks on the road in many other beds and kinked necks there was our down pillow and bed and I melted into it…
So beautiful and ministers to me so…to know you’ve been gypsying and still are…it means so much to me! xo
You just made my day! I love to hear about other gypsies and their homecomings – no matter how short stayed they are. And I tell you what? Four years back in that bed and I still whisper sweet nothings to it every night! :)
Enjoy sleeping in your bed :)
My boyfriend laughed at me for taking my pillow with me when I moved to Guatemala. But there was a comfort in that pillow much like you described – through the tears absorbed, dreams had, and a piece of home in a foreign land.
(Shhh, don’t tell anyone but I just took my pillow with me on our two week trip visiting family. And I may or may not have brought my favorite fitted sheet too!)
As long as you don’t tell that I brought my favorite blue jersey sheets to Guatemala too! :)
Lisa-Jo, I love this. “adrift on the grace of others”… mmm, yes. Yes that precise thing. That’s how I feel some nights when I crawl into my sheets and smell my pillowcase and feel my high school self and sink into the mattress that must hold so many late nights wondering why on earth God was so very far away. This post is wonderful. Thank you.
My heart was so happy for your comfort, even though it was years ago. :) Hoping your getting some much needed rest now, too.
Oh Lisa-Jo, I wanted to weep when you walked down the stairs and saw that welcoming bed. What a thoughtful, loving thing for her to do. It inspires me to walk in quiet service.
Honestly, Linda – I wanted to weep too :)
You are such a beautiful writer. You always know just how to make me cry my friend.
I think you and I are both a bit loopy on pregnancy hormones these days, eh? :)
Lovely. An especially good story to tell because it’s an especially good story to remember. Happy New Year and sweet dreams.
Thank you :)
such lovely story,so inspiring! sometimes we just have to stop to think about what is really import in Gods eyes and inside our life.There is a lesson to be learn even under suffering.There is always something good,a ray of sun in the end of our dark times…Thank you for reminding me of that.
hugs
lila
Well I was crying before I read this post (until lately not usually done often) so this didn’t help. Love the post. A good reminder that there is always love and grace to be found when we need it, even of we feel lost. I have been grabbing on to every fiber of that grace. Thanks for doing what you do and providing a little of that grace.
Thank you. That was so beautiful… it reminds me to look for those little opportunities to ‘be Christ’ to others today
c