Again this year, we walked down to the ravine to write on our rocks. Out with the old and in with the new. Casting our cares away and ushering in fresh faith. Asking God to meet us where we are weak. Where we are hurting. Where we are tired. Praying for God to do what only God can do: help the helpless.

This past year I learned how helpless I really am. How helpless people actually are in the face of so many things. Nobody wants to talk about helplessness, but it’s the human condition.

Last year I faced the big “C.” Our son-in-law Drew’s friend Mark was diagnosed with cancer around the same time I was. Today I am here and Mark is in heaven. A young, strong man in heaven with his Savior now. A weak, weary mother a decade older than Mark here with new strength.

This does not add up to our human expectations. Our human demands. Our human desires. The apostle Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” Philippians 1:21. Only one destination matters. Eternity with Christ. We are fools to think otherwise. Fools to live for this bittersweet world. But oh how we batter ourselves down here going after the bittersweet, grasping and gasping for all life can give us and still wanting more.

This year we didn’t just write our struggles and sins on the rocks we gathered. We wrote our hopes and dreams. What we want Jesus to give us after we cast our cares upon Him.

“I don’t like this,” said our oldest daughter Cami with a rock and a sharpie in hand. “I need to write down the same word as last year.”

I felt the weight of Cami’s angst. Last year I cast FEAR away, too. And still it’s here. Heavy some days. The cancer will return. The kids will go astray. I’ll never become a novelist. And my broken prayer the same: Your will be done, Lord.

“I’ll write anxiety instead of fear,” Cami decides, settling on her word.

Eleven-year-old John and I write down our old words. FEAR in big black letters.

And we throw these rocks with all our might into the depths of the ravine.

Isn’t this what we do? Every day? All our lives? Mustering strength against our sins? Against our pain? Against our pride? We little human beings who often make too much of ourselves. And the battle ebbs and flows with the tide of our lives. Washing back and forth until we reach the end of the beach. Or the end of ourselves.

2013 brought the end of myself. If a person can shatter, I shattered. The doctors who cared for me all agreed exhaustion caused my breakdown. And lack of potassium. And dehydration. “The next step for you was coma. And then death. Your body just shut down,” said three different doctors.

I don’t know… to me, it felt like a soul shutdown. The descent to a very dark place.

In the ravine, five-year-old G2 wanted to write “hell” on his rock. “Why?” I asked. “Because I don’t want anyone to go to hell. I want everyone to go to heaven.” Such sweetness out of the mouth of a blond little babe.

My breakdown felt like three days in hell. And then came Easter. Literally. I walked out of the hospital Easter weekend. And never, ever, ever have I been so grateful to return to the light.

On the day I arrived home, I climbed on my green, John Deere mower and cut the grass. And cut the pasture. And rode my mower all over our land. Scott brought me out an edible arrangement sent by a caring friend. After I took one piece there on the mower~ melon on a stick~ the boys gobbled the rest in five minutes sitting at our faded and sun-bowed picnic table as I mowed around them savoring my melon.

2013 was pretty rough on my husband too. “I want joy,” Scott said in the ravine, refusing to write on two rocks. It took me awhile to find the one perfect, white, river rock for his “joy.” He stood on the bank above me making sure our boys did not fall down the steep embankment. Funny how we all took extra time and care finding the rocks for our hopes and dreams.

I carried home my two keeper rocks. On one I wrote “love” because Jesus says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” On the other I wrote my word for the year, “Write.” The word I first resisted when it came to me in church after our pastor asked us all to choose a word. “My word is encourage,” said Pastor Doug, a strong, humble leader new to our congregation. His wife Tonya fits a hole in my heart. She called me her soul sister not long after we became friends, and I thought, yes. 

So we carried our rocks home. The boys wanting to keep theirs in hand, Scott and I placing ours on the mantle above our fireplace. Later when I took a picture for this blog, I was taken aback when Trust in the Lord with all your Heart leaned there beside my rock. It’s been on the mantle for five years, long enough I usually don’t notice this plaque anymore.

Pastor Doug had preached out of Proverbs 3 before encouraging all of us to choose a word this past weekend. This prompted me to memorize Proverbs 3 this year. This plaque on our mantle of Proverbs 3:5 was given to me by my prayer partner Kay when I was pregnant with G2. Another plaque of Proverbs 3:5 Kay gave me hangs in my bathroom, and another sits on the dresser in my bedroom. Proverbs 3:5 got me through the frightening days after G2 was diagnosed with cysts in his brain while in my womb. A Down Syndrome diagnosis loomed as well. For five months we prayed for a healthy baby, while submitting to God’s plan no matter what flowed into our lives along with my pregnant tears.

To this day, Proverbs 3:5 reminds me God is bigger than any fear I have and G2 is precious. A beautiful little boy.

The Bible says to confess our sins to each other and pray for each other so we will be healed, James 5:16. I confess I’m afraid to write this year. Afraid to crack myself open. In my journals. In my blogs. In my novels.

But I must face FEAR. This is where BRAVE is born. Courage does not exist without fear.

I never realized before this moment that the word “fear” has the word “ear” in it.

So I will listen.

To write one has to listen.

And as I listen, I hear God say, “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, I am your God. I will strengthen you and will help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” Isaiah 41:10.

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2.

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Deuteronomy 31:8.