A few weeks ago I was greeted with some lower left back pain.  We had just gotten done cutting wood where I was carrying some stumps, so I just assumed I had pulled a lower back muscle.  When the pain intensified, I was perplexed, but it was a weekend so I thought I’d just take some Tylenol and wait it out.

After a really good back massage by my husband, the pain quit and I slept well and thought it was taken care of.  About mid-morning the next day, Sunday, the back pain started coming back.  By early afternoon there was also abdominal pain.  We had some left over hydrocodone from a child’s earlier script, and I took one.  About an hour later I took another.  Nothing seemed to help.  The pain was as intense as labor pains and I had now begun vomiting.  We began to suspect a kidney stone. 

After watching me writhe in pain for over five hours, my husband couldn’t take it anymore and made the executive decision that I would be going to the Emergency Room, where a shot of morphine took care of my pain and a CT scan confirmed I had a 4.7mm stone about half way down the ureter. 

On that same Sunday I had awakened with a dream that my unofficial “mom” had died.  A phone call later that day confirmed it.  The funeral was pushed to two weekends later.

There was a lot of apprehension for me about the upcoming funeral.  Marilyn and I had met online, both of us writers, and we had developed a friendship.  As the time passed, she extended a genuine offer to adopt me.  We kind of laughed about it fondly, as the thought appealed to both of us for how our relationship had grown.  Then she said, “No I’m serious Michelle.  I want to adopt you.” 

I told her, “You don’t have to do that.  You’re like the mom I never had, and that is enough.  I simply love you.”  She did not let it go, and called me even one day and said she wanted to make it official and do it legally.  I was overwhelmed.  I put her off for a few months until she required an answer.  I explained to her that I didn’t want to interfere with her own family.  I had come into the picture quite late in the game (when she was 80 or so), and it was okay.  Besides, why ruin what we had?  [I have a history of family offers that ultimately failed, so this caused me anxiety to make it official.]

I knew that her children didn’t really know me.  She had spoken about me to them and they knew of me.  They are wonderful people, truly wonderful.  I entered Marilyn’s life at a time they had more distant relationships, and they lived in other parts of the country.  Marilyn and I probably bonded even more because she was longing for deeper connection with her children and I had no mother. 

So when she died and we were traveling to get to her funeral, I had some anxiety.  I knew what we had, but others did not.  Our relationship would most likely seem quaint or nostalgic to others, and not real.  But it was real to me.  It was real to Marilyn.  She had spoken to me many times about her death, had offered to give me her house (and I had deferred her back to her children), and some other things…

By the time of the funeral, none of the things Marilyn had spoken with me about had been conveyed to me by her children.  I was not in a love relationship with Marilyn for her things, so I refused to address them.  I thought one of the things was written in the will, but nothing was said to me.  When I arrived to the town of the funeral and fellowshipped with the friends around, some other things came to light of places of honor for others in the glaring emptiness for me.

The day of the funeral there were two “Reserved” rows at the funeral.  Two people sat in them.  And I sat with Bill apart from them in the general crowd.  It was a beautiful service and Marilyn was honored for the truly amazing person she is.  It was a privilege and honor to be there.

That night I awoke to Bill getting out of bed around two a.m.  When he didn’t come back to bed, I found him sitting in the dark.  I asked him if he was sick or if something was wrong.  He couldn’t sleep.  He said he was so bothered.  We got on the road and drove the twelve hours home.  And this is what he said to me…

He said he couldn’t sleep because he didn’t feel like I was honored the way Marilyn loved me and honored me.  He was hurt for me.  He knows my pain.  He knew I stood in the foyer of my own mother’s funeral where six hundred people attended and there was standing room only.  I was not seated with the family.  I was not acknowledged as a daughter.  He knows all the grandparents and aunts and uncles who have died and refused to acknowledge me as a daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, niece, etc.  He has seen my pain of being orphaned and abandoned and rejected that I have carried over and over and over, and he thought this time it would be different.  He knew how Marilyn loved me and I her.  He knew the commitments we had made to one another, and this was too much.

He couldn’t understand how her children did not honor me as such.  He wanted to say something to them, but I had forbidden it before.  But now, now that it was over, he wanted to say something.  We both acknowledged they probably simply didn’t know.  They didn’t understand what we had, and if they did, they saw it differently than I obviously did.

I listened.  I heard his pain for me in his voice.  I saw it in his eyes and in the strain on his face.  I said, “It’s okay, Bill.  God knows.”  He couldn’t understand why nothing was extended or offered to me.  To him it was wrong, and he of all people would understand the pain it would cause me.  I prayed.  Finally I said…

“I’m going to need you to kidney stone this.”  Bewildered he said, “What does that mean?”

“You’re hurt because I’m hurt.  You know me so well you know the damage this does to me, the old pains it resurrects, the rejection and abandonment it reiterates.  There’s still not a place for me of honor as a daughter.  And this grieves you for me.  But probably the children didn’t know or understand the conversations we’ve had, the commitments we had made to one another. (There’s no way they could know the rejection of my own mother(s).) If they didn’t know, telling them may cause them pain, feelings of guilt or shame and would change nothing and add burden.  I don’t want to do that.  That’s not helpful.  If they did know, well, I don’t want to know that.  It’s between them and God. 

“Just like you watched me writhe in debilitating pain with a kidney stone, you were helpless to help me.  There was really nothing you could do for me but support me, help me, hold me, carry me to help.  It’s the same here.  You see my pain.  Come along beside me and support me, help me work through the pain.  You can’t fix it and you can’t help it.  Voicing it to those you feel wronged me may make you feel better for a moment but you’ll feel worse after – because what’s been done can’t be changed and you will have dumped possible pain on others who probably did not mean to cause pain.  God has been faithful to heal me every time and this time will be no different.  Just help me carry the burden a little longer, love and support me while I heal.  This too will pass, just like the kidney stone.”

He agreed.

Later that day it hit me.  I think Bill hurt more for me this time than even I hurt for myself.  He was sleepless for the dishonor he thought was done to me.  He was in anguish for the pain he knew such rejection brings to me.  It was not okay to him, and he rose up like the protector he is to try to defend my honor.  Because I saw Bill’s pain at my pain, my own pain was somehow lessened.  He had shouldered that burden for me just by acknowledging and expressing it.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her…

Eph 5:14 NASU

What a demonstration of Christ’s love for us.  See, Christ’s love is perfect.  He sees all and knows all.  He knows the painful disappointments and hurts of our lives and how they have crippled us at times.  He hurts when we hurt.  His love understands all the nuances and variances that impact us, and why. 

But Christ also “kidney stones” it, not because He is powerless, but because He is perfect.  The order of life here on earth is fraught with misunderstandings and mistakes that create the ripple effect, impacting all that overlap with those involved.  Christ knows to respond to everything that hurts us by confrontation to the people the hurt came through may bring damage to the other people, people He loves as well, people who may have misunderstood or been negligent, or simply did not know.  He sees the whole picture.  He responds in love to all of us, all the time.  It just doesn’t always feel like love at the time.

While Bill is human and without the omniscience of God, he lays down his life for me in a myriad of ways almost daily.  But Christ is perfect.  What Bill beautifully attempts to do for me, Christ perfectly does for us. 

So Bill and my new phrase for when we need one another’s love and support but not an action of defense is “Gonna need you to kidney stone this”.  And we’ll have a visual reminder of the one we love in intense pain (physical, mental, emotional, whatever) that cannot be solved by our actions, so we must relent to stand alongside in prayer and love and create a place to heal for the other, relying on the perfect Love of Christ for the situation, so as to not create more damage.

This is a lesson a long time coming for me; one I wish I had known years and years ago.  It has made Christ’s words in Matthew 11:28-30 even more meaningful to me:

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

To be human on this earth is to endure pain and suffering, the only difference is degree and detail.  We are called to bear one another’s burdens to fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2).  We do this because He does this for us.

There are times wrongs are to be confronted and actions are to be taken, but we must be slow to react and quick to seek the heart of Christ in those situations. 

This particular experience was not that someone set out to wound me or carelessly injure, but it was a simple human misunderstanding and disappointments that the enemy capitalized on because of my past pain.  The enemy of my soul used some circumstances to try to cripple me back to the point of damage from rejection in a very vulnerable area for me.  This is why when I prayed when Bill wanted to engage in action to defend my honor, the Spirit led me to my recent experience (kidney stone) to help me understand. 

If we are serious about being conformed to the image of Christ, we must be serious about allowing the experiences of our lives to be used to help conform us.  If I react inappropriately, I miss the opportunity for me to be conformed into Christ’s image, and I bring potential damage to another child of God.  I have done this in my life more times than I can probably count.  I must be determined to learn what I need to learn. 

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there are times for certain actions, just as there are times for the exact opposite actions.  I must seek God for understanding the appropriate action for my particular situation.  I have failed this so many times.  I pray I begin to succeed in this more in the days and years ahead.

But the beautiful lesson in this for me is that Christ loves us perfectly.  There are times He Himself has risen to my defense, and there are other times He appears immobile and silent.  He sees what we do not see. But He has always loved me through the pain and brought me the healing I need, and He is able to do this without damaging another.