Hiraeth- my home away from home

It was a typical day at the Caribbean Mountain Academy in the Dominican Republic where I worked as a missionary.  I was hiking the mountain behind our campus, guiding a family who had never been on the trails before.

"Are you sitting down?" a stranger asked on the other line as I answered my phone.

"That's strange," I thought. Normally I can't even get reception up here.

"I'm so-and-so from the German embassy".  My stomach sank, instantly knowing what she was going to say next.  I sat on the rocky ground in a daze as she explained the news of my sister's death.  I remember my friends surrounding me and praying for me as I stared straight ahead, not seeing anything but with tears streaming down my face.  I remember somehow making my way down the mountain but feeling like I was floating and not really experiencing it.

The 'spot'

Fast forward almost TWO years later, and I'm in the EXACT same SPOT where I had collapsed to the ground and heard the traumatizing news.  I remember that awful day vividly as I sit there now.  I look around and note that the place has not changed one bit.  Except for ME.  I'm not crying this time. Just reflecting.  I never thought I would come back here.  I never thought I could be in such a healthy place and survive this.  The pain is still there, but I can also recall how God has worked in my life these last two years, comforting me and healing me in his special way.

When I left the DR a year ago, I had many negative and bitter memories associated with it.  Coming back after a year allowed me to have closure and remember all the things I loved about this amazing place. The good, the bad, the ugly.  It's all here.  Except this time I feel lighter, able to remember all the good memories that I had while here.

There is a nostalgic longing for this place - a place I didn't think I would ever return to.  The English language does not have a word for this feeling.  But other languages have it - the Welsh hiraeth, the Portuguese saudade, the Romanian dor, etc.

It's a concept that's hard to explain, but one that the global nomad is all too familiar with.  

I left the DR due to circumstances outside of my control.  It just didn't seem fair!

But my visit to the DR this time around reminded me of something that I knew all along...

GOD IS ALWAYS IN CONTROL.

When I was stranded in Miami due to Hurricane Maria, I questioned whether I was really supposed to come to the DR or not.  Was I being foolish?  I was the only crazy American still on the flight trying to get there.  After the third or fourth cancellation I thought, "This is it.  I will sleep in the airport tonight and if it's cancelled tomorrow morning, then I will cancel my trip and go home."  I cried at this realization and a man from my flight kindly gave me his dinner and tried to console me.  He was a missionary in Santiago and let me read two of his books.  

The titles? Fearless Faith and Safe in the Storm.

Really?!

So I read them.  There was nothing else to do! 

But I felt such a peace at being reminded of God's sovereignty and control in the midst of the storm.

"We have all the desire to control things that we cannot, and we often forget how deeply God cares for us..

We think that if our circumstances change, we will be at peace...

Difficult times are opportunities to be grateful for the strength that Christ supplied, that we might endure them...

God will not protect you from what he can perfect you from...

If you are doubting his Sovereignty, review His promises"

Ok, God I get it!

Miraculously, the flight took off without a problem the next morning and I spent an amazing week in the DR!  I'm so grateful that I got to go back, spend time with old friends and visit some of my favorite places.

God is at work and continuously bringing me closer to Him, even though I can't understand it sometimes.

Dosing your pain

Grief is like a chest of drawers.

The individual drawers come in many different sizes.  

Some large. 

Some small,  and holding just a small memory.

Which drawer will you open today?

My counselor introduced me to this concept, explaining that some days you can only open a tiny drawer and feel a light memory of pain.  For me, this may be hearing a song that reminds me of my sister or wearing a sweatshirt of hers.

Some days you open a larger drawer with a stronger memory that brings you to tears. 

And some days, the grief is so strong that you pull out the entire drawer only to crawl inside for the rest of the day.

Which drawer will you open today?

Just this week I was working like normal on my computer and suddenly a song came on that reminded me of my sister.  I suddenly stopped and burst into tears.  I spent maybe an hour crying and looking at pictures of my sister.  And then just like that- it was over.  I resumed my day without a problem and like nothing had happened.  Thankfully, I was alone and had some buffer time in my day where I could do this.  That day I only needed to pull out the drawer for an hour.

The problem with grief is that you don't always have control over which drawer will be yours to open that day.

Another image to describe this idea is to 'dose your pain'.  Coined by Dr Wolfelt, a leading grief psychologist, this image simply means feeling the pain in spurts instead of the full brunt of the intensity.  He explains that sometimes you may need to distract yourself while other times you may need to make a safe place to grieve.  However, this DOES NOT mean running away from the pain! It will always be something that you have to come back to.
I love what he says here:

"To live into the future depends on my response to the reality of what I am experiencing. Temporarily, I need to create an insulation from the full force of what I am coming to know. If I felt it all at once, I might die. But feel it I must". (p. 141 in Understanding your Suicide Grief)

Learning the concept of 'dosing your pain' was huge for me!

After my sister passed away, I drowned myself in the pain and intensely exposed myself to the grief.  I thought that by doing this, I would 'get through it' at a faster rate.  But the pain was at such a constant intensity that I almost didn't survive it.

I think I was stuck in this extreme because I wanted to avoid the mistakes I made when my dad passed away.  After my dad passed away I used the coping mechanisms of avoidance.  For instance, on Father's day, I would purposefully schedule myself a 12-hour shift at work so that I wouldn't have to think about it.  Avoidance is not healthy and only hurts you in the long run.

In contrast, dosing your pain is a way that you can create a safe place to grieve when you are ready.  There are certainly times when you may need to distract yourself temporarily to ease the pain.  It's ok to protect yourself and retreat to safety when you need to.  I learned that grief is not something you can do all at once as if it were a 'To Do' checklist.  Dosing your pain is healthy alternative to both wallowing in constant despair or avoidance all together.

So what drawer will you open today?  

It's ok if you don't have the strength to open one today. 

Tomorrow is a new day.

Be kind to yourself.

Dose your pain.  

Where does your identity lie?

This past month, the overwhelming theme God has been instilling in me has been IDENTITY.

MK retreat

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a retreat for adult MKs (missionary kids who grew up in another country).  During one session we discussed our identity, pinpointing those things in our lives that 'defined us'.  We also were to write in lies and darkness that the enemy may put on us that affect our identity.  In the center, we located our TRUE identity in Christ such as created by God, daughter of the King, etc.  Since I'm a visual learner, it helped to see it laid out in diagram form like this.  I have done this sort of exercise before but I was surprised at how much it had changed over the years.  Whether I like it or not, I realized that my sister's death has changed aspects of my identity.

In some ways, it is good because I've rearranged my priorities and grown stronger and more dependent on the Lord.  Yet oftentimes, the lies of Satan that I let myself believe can sometimes be very overwhelming.  In my mind I hear his taunts, "Ha. You call yourself a social worker and yet you couldn't even save your sister" or "What guy would want to marry someone who's sister commited suicide?"  While deep down, I knew they are lies, they cloud my judgment and send me reeling, crumbling my self-esteem into pieces.

While it's a daily struggle, I need to base my identity on what God says about me.  I need to keep my kingdom focus on my central identity which is in Jesus Christ and can never be shaken!  Wow.  What kind of kingdom impact could I have if I lived in this truth every single day?

Of course God didn't stop there!  In my small group, we have been discussing similar topics through the book Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst.  She mentions,

"Old patterns of thought must be torn out, and a new way of looking at the core of who I am using God's truth has to be put in place. My identity must be anchored to the truth of who God is and who He is to me. Only then can I find a stability beyond what my feelings will ever allow. The closer I align my truth with His truth, the more closely I identity with God- and the more my identity really is in Him".  

Your identity can't be tied to you what has happened to you because this is constantly changing.  Jesus is the only unchanging constant and so our identity and hope must be anchored in Him!  In Christ, my identity is so much more than my circumstances.  Yes, my sister's death rocked my world and changed a lot of things, but it is not where I ultimately find my identity.  I'm not labelled by this and am not a victim of my circumstances.
To top it off, God has also had me reading Ephesians in my devotional time...which is all about spiritual blessings and identity in Christ.
"Ok God, I get it, you can stop talking to me through a megaphone now!"  Sometimes I do need truth coming at me from all directions or else I won't get it!
I must never forget that my identity is in Christ!

"We must tie our identities to our unchanging, unflinching, unyielding, undeniably good, and unquestionably loving God." 

~Lysa TerKeurst

In loving memory

The anniversary of Adriana's death was last month (Oct 15) and I had been dreading it a long time beforehand.  Strangely enough, it did not hit me like I thought it would since during this week I was in and out of the ER and finally had a gallbladder surgery the day before the anniversary.  My mind was not able to process the emotional pain at the same time as the physical pain.  Plus, I was really out of it with all the pain meds!  I have finally been able to process it more little by little even though it still feels unreal at times. 

I put together some of my favorite pictures and memories of my Adrianita.  Some things that remind me of her: violins, yellow flowers, airplanes and bubble tea!

She was the genius of the family and helped work on this plane herself!

She LOVED animals and was a foster dog/cat mom

She graduated with honors with an aeronautical engineering major

This is the last picture we got together before Germany
and during my layover from Israel

One of our favorite things to do is travel! This is on our trip to Mexico.

Natalie's last picture taken before heading to Germany

One of her high school senior photos

She was Venezuelan born and raised!

One of her favorites- Venezuelan arepas!

We always played games as a family!

Artistic and crafty, she loved making ceramic/pottery art.
She also loved giving her homemade gifts to people.
When she was younger she was known for her little
teddy bears that she would sew and gift to people

Being silly as usual

We were bridesmaids in my mom's wedding.

Although suicide grief is like no other form of grief, I choose to remember Adriana through these memories instead of in the way she died. It can be difficult and painful to look through pictures and process my grief, but I know that in the end it is healing.  I don't want to be someone who runs away from the pain or looks to something other than the Lord to cope.

Lift my eyes to the hills and healing waters

I have been feeling pretty sentimental this week.  Maybe it's because Adriana would have been coming home from Germany soon.  Maybe it's because she should have been there last week when we travelled to Niagara Falls.  Maybe it's because she would have been my canoe partner on the church canoe trip tomorrow.  I have never been able to go on the canoe trip for whatever reason and I feel sick just thinking that she isn't coming with me this time.  At Adriana's memorial service our pastor shared a funny story from this trip.  Adriana lost her glasses over the edge of the canoe and jumped in to save them, insisting that she would be able to find them.  In the process she left my other sister stranded, crashing the canoe.  Adriana never did find those glasses but people never forgot it and forever teased her for it! My sister was intense and passionate about everything she did and it showed even in the little things like a canoe trip.  I guess getting ready for the canoe trip tomorrow has left me thinking about some things.


It is very strange how God works sometimes.  I was hiking on a mountain when I got the call from Germany informing me about Adriana.  Normally I prefer to do this hike alone but at the time I was showing the trails to a missionary family.  I'm so grateful that God knew I should not be alone this time! Maybe it was God's way of comforting me and letting me know that he was near.  For some reason, in God's sovereignty, that's where he wanted me to be at that time.  It is even a miracle that I got an international call like that where reception can be out of reach. It took awhile for me to hike this trail again because I associated the location with tragedy and tears.

Yet there's something about nature, water, and hiking that are very healing for me.  

Pico Duarte:

In March I had the blessing of hiking Pico Duarte for the 4th time!  There is something refreshing about pushing yourself to the limit and letting God meet you there. The views were breathtaking and gave me some renewed times of prayer.  The Lord kept saying to me, "You're worth it. You're enough" with every step that I took.  It's something that I needed to hear at the time because I had been listening to Satan's lies about what Adriana's death said about me.  I prayed for healing during this trek and standing at over 10,000 feet on the peak helped me feel this.  I really felt the Lord give me some extra doses of peace and healing during this trip.  Psalm 121 stood out to me during this time: "I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, Maker of Heaven and earth."

Here's a short clip about our trip to Pico!!

Niagara Falls:
Last week it felt so wonderful to be able to get away and see the beauty of Niagara Falls with my two favorite people!  Of course, I insisted that we squeeze some hiking into the trip and so we explored the Niagara Glen and some parks.

I felt so blessed to be able to go on these trips such as Pico Duarte, Niagara Falls, etc.  I don't really know what I'm trying to say with all this except- Do things that bring you healing and help you honor your loved one.  You are never going to be the same but you can let God use things to bring you joy and peace.  Find what works for you in the grieving process.  For me right now it means going on the canoe trip and finding those healing waters.

What do I mean by healing waters? A friend of mine put it this way:

 "It's as though death has left a horrible burn all over my body. There's not an area that hasn't been affected. And grief is this big ocean that looms before you. It's almost impossible to imagine the pain you're about to endure when you take your burnt body and step into it. However, in the process of the pain, the salt will cleanse the wounds. It will prevent infection from setting in. It will eventually be healing. It's about taking those first steps toward that ocean of grief and letting the water do it's work. Because even if you just stand still, the water will eventually come to you. So, you lay down fear of what MIGHT happen when you enter the waters and place your heart in the hands of Him who formed it, and let Him walk with you into the grief." ~Katie Gerke