tears that can reap joy through suffering

It's Christmas day! This year was a little different since two of my sisters (The married ones with kids) were with their other families, and the other two sisters (the nurses) had to work in the ER today. It was a special morning, nevertheless - just me, my little brother (and yes, I slept in the bottom bunk in his room last night), my little sister, and mom and dad. We are saving the real Christmas morning extravaganza of the Jeffers family for Dec. 30 when we can all be together and exchange our gifts. My mom just HAD to give each of us at least one gift though! Every year, my mom and dad will give us one or two movies. Believe it or not, the gift that we all opened this morning was a brand new DVD!!! I was thrilled with mine: How to Train your Dragon. I'm a kid at heart, I know, but you have to watch it!

I also want to share with you a post I submitted on CaringBridge yesterday. Some of you may know that I have been taking care of a friend who has Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer - Jackie Wilks. I even went with her to Korea where she received some special cancer treatment. Yesterday hit me, being with her at the Cancer Treatment Center of America (the Tulsa location). Below is my post. I hope you can appreciate it and remember how precious life is and the gift of relationships. Suffering is beyond my understanding, but the only thing I can rest my spirit in is a feeling of peace that Christ understands. He has still given us inklings of hope amidst suffering.

Isaiah 25:7-8 says, "On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces..." And Psalm 126:5 states that, "Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy."

Today is Christmas Eve. I was out on the streets driving around a bit after spending several hours with Jackie at the CTCA. (She is currently still receiving her blood transfusion.) There were not many people out. Most of you are likely at home, preparing for a big, or even small, gathering of sorts. Maybe last minute decorating; cooking, no doubt; wrapping gifts; making everything look extra special. Many of you will have guests come into your home, or you are preparing to go to someone else's home. Many of you are also anxiously awaiting for family members to arrive - maybe even those family members who have been away from home for a long time.

One year ago, the Wilks' lives changed. They found out that Jackie was officially diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer (since her mom also had pancreatic cancer, it was just a matter of time before Jackie would also get it). One year ago today, on the eve of the day that we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Wilks were in Seoul, South Korea, receiving cancer treatment. Today is not a whole lot different except for the fact that Jackie is back home - well, in Tulsa, that is (I think Shawnee will always be her home : ) - and she is now one full year into her battle with cancer. Prior to receiving her blood transfusion this AM, she had some labs done yesterday and again this morning. The labs show that she has contracted some sort of infection in her blood. They do not yet know where the infection comes from. PLEASE pray that it will be something easily treatable and not another thing to have to treat long-term.

I have come to despise cancer with every ounce of my being. For those of you who have traveled this road with a loved one, you might even be able to relate to feelings of anger; feelings of sadness; feelings of aloneness; feelings of confusion; and just feelings of tiredness. God has incredibly blessed Jackie Wilks with a strong body. She has put up an astounding fight - and she still is!! The doctors and nurses are truly "astounded" (in Dr. Greeff's words) at how well she has been recovering and at how well she is healing. It just gets hard to see someone you love hurt. It leaves a deep, helpless pull within your body because you see the grimace on their face or in their body language from pain of needle pokes, or just from general discomfort and you can do nothing to help.

I pray for all of those individuals and families who are living through this holiday season - this Christmas - who have cancer or another serious illness. It is hard. I do not easily cry, but I trust that my Heavenly Father was catching some of my tears today. I pray that all of the tears that have been shed for Jackie or for your loved one will soon reap songs of joy, as the Psalmist says! Jesus understands our pain, because he suffered and died a humiliating and unfathombly painful death on the cross. He took on that pain so that He could comfort us in our pain. We have not experienced a pain that Jesus Christ has not experienced.Enjoy life today. Do not take if for granted. Merry Christmas!

Me and Jackie in South Korea just outside of the hospital (yep, we were out on the street going for a stroll lugging her IV pole with us : )

barefoot

My mom told me just last week that she used to go barefoot all the time when she was younger. I smirked and called her a hippie. She denied.
(Picture Left: Mom participating in "rush" with her sorority in college. And look! She is barefoot! She would be mortified knowing I posted this, but I think it shows you a glimpse of her life-loving personality.)


Sometimes I go into public places barefoot. Some say that is gross and unsanitary. I find it freeing.

Jedi hated wearing shoes. His pudgy, one-year old feet stomped and stomped to try to fling them off. But who cares - wearing shoes in his culture is a privilege.

I never considered how many pairs of shoes I had until I went to India. Not knowing what to expect in the time I would live there, I packed "prepared" - just as my dad had always taught me. A couple pairs of chacos; a couple pairs of "nicer" sandals just in case; a pair of casual slip-ons; and two pair of sneakers (just in case I would find myself in rough terrain). Looking back, I can't believe I packed that many! Now, each time I look inside my closet, just below where my clothes hang, in the direction of the floor, I feel a small tug inside my chest.

Shoes are fun to have. It is fun to mix and match colorful shoes. It is fun to wear different-looking shoes and slip-ons. I must admit, however, that I don't get alot of genuine "wear" out of most of my shoes. In India, my family only had one or two pairs of shoes for all kinds of occasions and any kind of weather.

It is fun to go barefoot. It is against the norm in the society which I live. As freeing and enjoyable as going barefoot sometimes is to me, I wonder how often our privileged society stops to ponder on the depth of the issue of going barefoot. If you own more than one pair of shoes, and they are in good condition, you are blessed.

not like when we were young

As I get older, I find that life's questions get more difficult to answer with uplifting assurance: Why did she/he have to contract cancer? Why is this happening to our family? Why did my parent have to die too soon? They had so much more life to live. Why did God get our hopes up with a child, only for us bear the emotional heartache of another miscarriage? God has known this desire of mine since I was young, so why is He making me wait, with each year that passes to cause a heavier sadness?

We walk through life with smiles on, hiding the pain and mourning we truly feel inside - in the very depths of our souls. I find myself reflecting on difficult questions like these, whether they be questions of my own or questions asked of me from dear friends. I love loving people and trying to encouarage them with hope, but what can one say to questions like these? The real answers will not satisfy like they once did at a much younger age.

I wish I could give a light-hearted, happy answer that would wipe away such painful sorrows. I guess that job is not mine, though. I wish, with all of my heart, however, that you may find hope amidst the sadness; strength despite the weakness; joy through the sorrow; and peace in the uncertainty of life's questions.

May the God of hope fill you with peace as you trust in Him. May you find that peace and assurance!

dusty old memories, yet still hope

It’s paralyzing. A chilling, tingly, hauntingly familiar feeling creeps through my veins. It starts with pressure within my skull; tingles from my fingers that shoot up my forearms; and then reaches my chest, leaving nothing but an incredible heaviness. My heart thumps. My mind and my eyes freeze – distracted by memories that never seem to allow the dust to settle on them. I am jolted. I become quiet. The pressure I feel within my skull intensifies. Breathing is much more measured. It is noticeably faster, but I can feel and count each racing thump. What is it racing from? Maybe from the fear – the fear of memories; of real life past events. It emerges like a gruesome, fierce, and threatening monster. From where? It seems from thin air. Like a flame of smoke that takes on a gnarly shape, so to speak. The feeling is suffocating, but it will pass. As it inflicts wounds into fresh souls, the old scars in its former victims eventually crawl back from the harsh light. My pulse finds its steady, normal pace again. The tingles subside. My head still feels slight tension. The dust subtly begins to collect again. Memories are filed away. They can never be burned. They are indestructible. Hurtful. Despicable. Unfortunate. Sad. Bitter. They will pass though.

Suffering from the fear of past events is real. Not everyone has a perfect slate or an ideal past. Some have innocently become victims of various forms of abuse. It happens in other countries, in America, and most likely in your own neighborhood, place of work, school, or place of worship.

I am grateful to have hope in a God who is patient to wipe away my fears, however. A female Christian author wrote, "Human flesh and blood have no weakness so strong that God's strength is made weak" (Beth Moore, So Long, Insecurity - You've Been a Bad Friend to Us). Why are we projecting old fears on a new day? God wants to take us where we have never been before, so let go of the heavy, hurtful baggage, and take hope in today! Like Isaiah relates of the Lord's words in the Bible,

"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not percieve it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland. (43:18-19 NIV)

I love what Emily Dickens writes:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.

Take hope, dear ones. May the Lord answer you when you are in trouble; May the God of Jacob make you strong. Psalm 20:1 NET

in time...

i have gone to new places, and made new friends...

i have traveled to some old places, and discovered a still fresh familiarity...

i have made some mistakes, and yet have been given second chances...

i have gone back to old roots, but have found new soil for new growth...

i have held onto old passions, and yet have simultaneously discovered new passions...

i have been enveloped by rainy, sometimes stormy, days, but still held onto the hope that the sun would peak through once again...

friends have left...

new ones have come...

families have changed, some for the better, and some for the other than better...

i have come to be, and i am still becoming.

I love you bessy, Aunty!

What do you do when you miss someone (or someones) so much that it becomes almost unbearable? I never anticipated this happening. I was just going to teach the three children, more or less - to get a needed job done and I was the one to do it. I was excited for the opportunity, and as I dotted all of my i's and crossed my t's before I got on the plane, I somehow miscalculated the emotional aspect of things - the human aspect.

I cannot get them out of my mind. Dheeraj...Ashish...Hemalatha. There is a permanent mark on my mind with their precious faces at the very front. I see their smiles; their hair; their sense of humor; their battered knees from when they lived and played in their villages. I hear their silly laughters; their voices; their dancing feet. I can almost feel them. I can remember how light-weight they were when I would pick them up and spin them around, or just love on them, with their head crooked on my shoulder.

I can never forget when we would play the "i love you" game, and they could not think of any higher number so they would say to me, slightly laughing from the joy of the game, with their teeth showing through their ear-to-ear smile, and their deep brown eyes bright with happiness, in their mixed English and village language, "I LOVE YOU BESSY!" (In Oriya, bessy means something like most. One day, Ashish, Hemalatha, and I were going back and forth, telling each other how much we loved each other. We went from "I love you 5" to "I love you 10...11...16...20...33...back to 22", and finally, when, in the heat of our little game, Hemalatha could not think of any higher number to express how much she loved me, she yelled out with a huge smile, cheekbones just shining, "I - Love - You - BESSY!" That is something that goes deep into your heart.)

I have been back from India for nearly two months, now. I don't remember being filled with as much joy since I have been back as when I got to talk with them for the first time on Skype last night! It probably looked ridiculous how much I was smiling. My heart was full. Hands to my mouth occasionally as they said precious things that made me nearly cry. Dheeraj, the oldest (7 years old), seemed to understand the most what a blessing it is that both of us can still talk to and see each other from different parts of the world. He tried so hard to stay in the camera so that I could see him! Their hair has grown out. Ashish and Hemalatha have lost more teeth. The blue button-down shirt with a few white and black stripes that Dheeraj wore frequently is beginning to look smaller.

I asked them about some of the things that I taught them...ABC's A to Zed (as they say in India); Philippians 4:13 (and they said it so fast!...faster than what I ever remember them saying); the "Five Little Monkeys" song...They sang a new Hindi song for me that they had learned...

Probably the saddest thing about the whole 10 minute skype conversation with them is that I realized there were things that I was forgetting. My absence of being with them was showing - maybe not to them, but to me. It made me want to cry, but I had to hold it together for them. It was hard to fully understand what they were saying and I had to ask them to repeat themselves. No, it wasn't the reception on Skype. I was losing their language - their dialect of the English that I taught them. The best way I know how to describe this is when a parent has a small child who is just learning how to speak. As their vocabularly expands, and the child starts to put together rough sentences, it is only the parent or immediate family that can fully translate what the child is saying. Even though the child is speaking English, it is hard for anyone outside of that child's family to fully understand the way that the child forms the words and sentence structure.

That is how I felt last night and it broke my heart that it took me longer to understand what they were communicating to me.

When it came time for them to go "Shtudy! Shtudy, Aunty!", I heard the small voices of Dheeraj, Hemalatha, and Ashish yelling to me, "I love you bessy, Aunty! I love you bessy, Abigail Aunty! We love you bessy, Abigail Aunty!" They danced away, laughing. Dheeraj kept laughing, and slowly left the room, all the while watching the computer, waving at me, until he could see me no longer.

So what do you do when your heart hurts beyond repair? Do I stay here, so far away from my loves? Or do I make my home where my heart finds joy?

real life, incredible danger

Imagine living in a country where one of the biggest dangers is to be a woman; where girls at least as young as five years old (your daughter, your sister, cousin, niece) are mercilessly raped and left for dead; where you don’t know what it is like not to be in pain from the beating you received the night before from your husband – from the fist that he threw into your face, the hammer that he chased you around the house with, his foot in your side, the dinner plate at your head. Maybe you think to run to the authorities for help. If you make it there without your husband clutching you by the hair and giving you another beating for trying to turn him in, then the police will most likely snub you for not obeying your husband in the first place. Your home is a prison. There is no escape. You are powerless. This is your life. It is a nightmare, but it is real life.

....................

In an age where we fill our minds with reality TV, Hollywood news, sporting events and news, we forget that we are a minority. I am not talking race, here. I am referring to our wealth. I will wager to say that most of us are in good health, we have a job, we drive our own cars, we have extra cash to pay for at least some of our “wants”, we have had a good education, and we are never in fear for our lives. Yes, that’s right. We are an incredibly blessed minority.

I have read so many stories of the vulgar, inhumane oppression of women across the globe, and still it never ceases to cause my eyes to well with tears. I did extensive research for a few years on the oppression of women in Afghanistan. Although I am not currently focusing on Afghanistan in my studies or in my career, I still find myself drawn to the security situation in this warring country – with particular attention to the persecuted Afghan women.

I recently read a story from cnn.com about the violence toward Afghan women. Below is a shocking picture of how every day life is for some women in Afghanistan. Please take five minutes to read this. The least you can do for these women regardless of your expertise or career is to be informed.

Afghan women hiding for their lives
Story Highlights
U.N.: Nearly 90 percent of Afghan women suffer from domestic abuse.....There are less than a dozen shelters for women in the country.....In Afghanistan, women are often beaten, raped and even sold to the highest bidder.....Abusers are rarely prosecuted; most women are afraid to complain.

By Atia AbawiCNN

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Shameen's brown eyes seem lost as she thinks about the one day she wants to forget, but it is all she can think about. Still traumatized, she recounts the events that led her to a safe house in Kabul.

She was raped and nearly stabbed to death by her husband just seven days before we met her.
Her lips are quivering and her eyes full of fear.

"He forced himself on me," she said. "All I could do was scream."

She was married off 15 years ago when she was a teenager. Throughout those years she was tortured and abused, suffering daily beatings with an electrical wire or the metal end of a hammer.

This was her normal life.

"He chased after me with a hammer. He said if I made any noise he would put holes through me," Shameen said.

Shameen and her husband could not conceive a child. And in Afghan society, it seems, the blame always falls on the woman.

After one severe beating, she ran from her home and to the police station. Her husband promised the police he would not attack her anymore, so she gave in and agreed to go back home with him. Days later, Shameen's husband took her on a trip to visit her sister's grave -- a 15-year-old sister who was burned to death for displeasing her husband.

Shameen says her younger sister was 11 years old when she was forced to marry an older man. He would beat and abuse her until one day he killed her.

As Shameen walked along the graveyard with her husband he took her near a shrine where he forced her to the ground, lifted her burqa and raped her. He then threatened her with a knife and asked her who was going to help her now. She was screaming as he slashed her throat and body.

A passerby saved her.

Now, she has no one to turn to -- not even her own parents. In their eyes, she has brought them shame, an offense punishable by death.

In Afghanistan, a woman is blamed for the injustices she must live through. Shameen says when her sister was killed, her parents turned a blind eye. She misses her parents and siblings but knows she can never see them again.

"They'll kill me," she said without flinching.

She now hides in a safe house, isolated and alone. Like most Afghan women, she has lost all hope.
Afghanistan is a country where for centuries women have been considered property -- not equals, like the constitution states. They are often beaten, raped and even sold to the highest bidder. There are very few places women can turn to.

Authorities brought Shameen to a shelter run by Women for Afghan Women (WAW). The organization started in New York to provide humanitarian assistance to women who do not know they have rights. In this safe house, WAW is currently providing care, security and an education for 54 women and children.

Nearly 90 percent of Afghan women suffer from domestic abuse, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Despite that, there are less than a dozen shelters like this one in Afghanistan, usually run by non-governmental organizations.

Abusers are rarely prosecuted or convicted, and most women are afraid to say anything.
"Their mothers are beaten by their fathers. They're beaten by their fathers, by their brothers. It's a way of life," said Manizha Naderi, director of WAW.
Naderi is an Afghan-American who grew up in New York and has returned to Afghanistan to work with other women in hopes of bringing a change, although she said it will take generations.
"They see their mothers being beaten, they see their sisters their aunts, everybody," Naderi said. "So that's what they expect."

It is not just women who suffer.
Hosnia is a smiling eight year old who likes to play with her toys and other young girls at the shelter. She rocks her body on the mat where she sits, the rocking swaying her green plastic earrings as she talks with a muffled sweet voice.

"I have a difficulty," she said, when asked what she is doing at the shelter.

Her smile fades as she remembers the circumstances that brought her here.
Just three years ago when Hosnia was five, she was raped and left for dead outside her home in northern Afghanistan. Her father found her bloody body floating in a creek. She spent a month in the hospital as her little body recovered from that brutal assault. Out of love and fear for his daughter's life, Hosnia's dad brought her to this safe house.

According to WAW, her rapist was a young man from an affluent family and quickly released from jail because of bribes and family connections. The organization forced the authorities back on the case and he was then sentenced to six years in a Kabul juvenile prison. He has three years left in his sentence, and Hosnia's parents fear for their daughter's life. So the shelter is her home now and the women and children here, her family.

"We will take care of her through adulthood," Naderi said.

Hosnia's father, a poor farmer, knows the only chance for his girl to have a future in a country where rape victims are punished, is if she grows up here.

This shelter has dozens of heart-wrenching stories; it also houses dozens of women and girls who have the courage to live in a country where one of the biggest dangers is to be a woman.