Broken heart and broken body

“The body keeps the score,” they say.

Of course it makes sense. The failures of my body trace with striking clarity to loss. And it makes sense that when the heart breaks, the body breaks also.

As a child, this body carried its first coffin; a coffin filled with the empty, frail body of a brother who was loved. The same hands that had wrapped around the handle picked up a shovel too big for its 7-year frame and put dirt onto his grave. The ears that used to listen for his voice heard instead the dirt falling onto a cement vault echo in the sudden silence.

As a teenager, this body walked beside the second coffin; cradling the hearts and well-being of the little siblings that carried it with their own tiny hands. Another piece of my heart—loved more deeply than I have ever loved another because now I understood loss—shut inside a wooden box that swayed beside me. And again, these hands picked up a shovel and mixed my tears with the dirt.

This adult body carried the third coffin; the nine of us together, but still it felt too heavy for a body worn by grief. It shoveled dirt onto the grave of a man I never got to know, locking the little brother I loved in time where he would rest further and further behind me as I had to keep living. 

This body wrapped its family in arms and absorbed the tears that were poured out on its shoulders. It sang songs to comfort and to remember. It lent its voice and back to the bent and broken, stood up tall when others couldn’t and clung to the ground while others stood for me. These eyes have looked upon lifeless bodies of ones I loved and watched sorrow pulsing through the living bodies of ones I love…and still they choose to see. 

And what body could bear up under all that? 

Not mine. Death is separation, and my body physically internalized every death, dividing under the weight of grief. The infirmity that entered as a child wedged its way into the picture of my well-being and marked me; the infirmity that entered as a teenager waged its war alongside the first; the infirmity that entered as an adult severed the cord that tied the body and soul together…leaving this body a crippled thing, limping through life alone, longing for connection to the heart it carried.

And that is what the Lord is restoring right now; the unity between a body and soul severed by trauma. For the first time, there is peace as my soul reaches out its own healed hand to lift my body with it to new life.

Missing you on the eve of Spring

For the Return of my Friend
©4/26/24 Hannah McLean

My face turns toward the Spring breeze
lungs breathe deep
and I am filled.
The sights and sounds and smells that surround me
pour out their promises in the way only nature may.
And in this air, I cannot help but hope.

Time is ever changing things,
this I know,
the tiny nose that once wrinkled up a baby face
now sets among features matured into a different beauty.

Soft found hard.
The trials of life have a way of shaping things,
like the persistent rushing river through the grand canyon
forging in its passing a thing of extravagant wonder.

And yet,
many water cannot change all things
for my love persists;
unable to be washed away by current
unwilling to be pulled away by wind and gale
ever beating as the heartbeat at the core of life itself.

Hope rides upon the fresh air
as things once dead beneath the cold of winter
emerge in victorious shades of living color.
If ever it was time, why not now?

I open up my doors
I throw wide my windows
and cast my voice and heart into the earthen air.
My longing for you to come stretches across the space
between us;
may it find its way to you
nudging your heart to turn my way
spreading out a bridge worth walking.

I will be here,
this you must know,
listening for the sound of your footsteps
across the freshly plowed earth.

Ordinary

Sometimes it helps to say it out loud
to confront it as it is;
to look it in the eyes and stare it down
thus proving that it is not more powerful
than the decision I get to make in light of it.

I realized recently that I say these words
frequently
“I’m not really good at anything.”
I usually follow it up with encouragement,
“but I’m just going to do my best.”
It doesn’t necessarily feel degrading,
but it doesn’t feel healthy either.
It reeks of a tool that trains me to accept
as it seeks
to cover my pain with contentment.

I can trace it back,
to the event where this phrase was birthed:
When asked directly,
the one person I ever wanted
to be proud of me searched
but could find nothing nice to say of me.
I didn’t even realize there was someone
I wanted to make proud,
until I didn’t.

I don’t blame them, really,
I’ve never been the kind of person
who catches the light…
I’m the kind you have to unbury.

As I looked my declaration in the eye today
I could see that though it started somewhere
it was reaffirmed again and again
in the safe place of the past.
Rejection had a way of following me…
unacceptable and unwanted were sentiments that plagued
me from childhood,
but there was one place that made it bearable—
one place of belonging
one place where I believed I stood
in desirable light;
where others chose to see me and
to believe I was worth loving,
and it put the averted eyes in their place.

It’s no one’s fault, really,
I was born into a field of extraordinary beauty
but didn’t add to it…
because some people were made to behold
not to be beheld,
and I'm the lucky one.

It’s not that I don’t find joy in
my ordinary,
it is just that I find myself sad
that my safe place has lost
its desire for it.

Mother's Day Morning

Worship washes
©5-14-2023 Hannah McLean

I stand in Your presence
unable to get away for a moment
of quiet worship;
hands tug at me,
little voices cast their requests
into the air
as the music plays.

I feel like the widow
wishing I had more
than the small, corroded pennies
to bring You,
and for every time my eyes
are pulled down,
I lift them up.

I know that even as my lips sing
“Your grace has found me just as I am
empty handed
but alive in Your hands,”
so You will graciously accept
my woefully inadequate worship
and count it a joy.

So I sing
with all that my heart and my life
can afford and allow
and I feel the
worship of the Holy One
wash away the worship of self.

For such has motherhood
taught me
to die to self
to live to Christ;
my outstretched hands lifted also
amidst the outstretched hands
beneath me.

wounds

a father’s voice
©4-24-2020  hannah mclean

your voice was not there
my life moved from darkness to light
my heart changed from stone to flesh
my soul moved from death to life
and fruit abounds from the changes that transformed me from within
i hold out my offering for Him
allowing you to look upon the firstfruits of my life
desiring to share with you the beauty of what had been done
by the Almighty’s hand
but you turn your back and leave me
looking at the basket I cling to with an eager grip
wondering if i have woven it correctly
uncertain if the fruit will please Him
wishing i had something better
something more
to bring my Father

when i needed to hear you say to me
“well done, faithful one”
when i needed to hear you say to me
“i see evidence of God’s grace in you”
when i needed to hear you say to me
“He delights in your worship”
your voice was not there

but it is not just the absence of your affirmation
it is the volume of your turned back
“He will not accept your worship”
it is the volume of your voice withheld
“your thoughts of Him have no value”
it is the volume of your averted eyes
“the best of you cannot bring Him delight”

your voice was not there
and all these years later i still find myself
longing for a father’s voice
to affirm my steps
to build up my faith
to stand beside me and to spur me on
not because i crave the praise of man
but because the wounds i carry
seek healing balm
as i purpose to require and desire nothing
but the One I long to please

Living in the Light

I have been thinking lately about how I often write about the church I was raised in on this blog; I do not use glowing terms when I reference it. The things I write about on here are mostly about spiritual things and the journey I’m walking with the Lord, and much of the refining work God has to do in me requires me to examine the messiness and uproot the deep lies or untwist the messages I retained about who He is and who I am. I share them because I’m unwilling to hide when freedom is found in the light. I also share them because many of my extended family are still in the cult that the church of my youth broke off of or have left and are carry wounds because of all the broken things they’ve gone through and I want them to know who God really is. And I share them because maybe...maybe someone will read what I write and they will believe the hope and healing and affection of God for them.

But sometimes I wonder if my words hurt the hearts of the people who taught me there or brought me there. And that makes me sad because when I think of them...ALL of them...I feel no resentment or anger or fear or ill-will. I choose to believe that they did the best they could with what they had, and as strange as that may appear to you reading this, that was enough to soften my heart many years ago. Also, if you’re reading this and you ARE still angry, resentful, hurt, fearful or any other painful emotion not listed here...I don’t blame you. Those are absolutely justifiable, understandable feelings to have--you were harmed and that has never been acceptable. The people who harmed you are accountable to God for what they have done, whether you forgive them or not. Also, I am so sorry for your wounds (I seriously have tears running down my face as I just wrote that because I've seen some of them).

I had a good childhood, I really did. I grew up on a farm and played outside for hours with my brothers. Yes, we had a lot of rules and things weren’t always glorious, but I had a family who loved me, parents who encouraged me, a mom who listened to me, and a dad who taught me how to do things like fix my car. I had every physical need provided for, built sweet relationships with my siblings, and I even had some opportunities to do things I enjoyed (like sing in the choir and public speaking). Some nuggets I still carry with me: “Embrace your weirdness” (i.e. You don’t have to follow the crowd). “Know what you believe and why you believe it” (i.e. Think for yourself). “You are capable. Anything my boys can do, my girls can do” (i.e. Here’s a power tool, enjoy).

And there is one vivid thing that I took with me from the church I was raise in that I am very grateful for and I want to share it with you. I was taught to revere God. God was presented to me as a holy, majestic, perfect, mighty Being who was SO far above me that I couldn’t even grasp the wonder of who He was because the plane that He resided upon was far too great to bear the likes of a sinner like me, that this God was just in His wrath toward me and I should do nothing but tremble before Him.

That’s what I remember being told about God (in harsher terms, and for the record, that is a VERY lopsided view of God). But honestly, that was a great gift. 

Because it is true that God is holy, majestic, perfect, mighty, just and angry at sin...

and when THAT God bends down and whispers His affection to you in the darkest pit of your life....when THAT God cups your face in His hands and lifts your head and pulls you close...when THAT God sits beside you while you sort through the harm you’ve done to others and the harm you’ve done to yourself and the harm done to you without even once cringing at your ugliness...when THAT God pours out Himself to heal your wounds and bring beauty from your ashes...when THAT God says to you, “You are Mine and I am yours”...

then you will never be the same.

A long awaited opportunity to say, "Thank you."

Dear Jhosselin,

It has been almost three years since I got that life-changing phone call in the early hours of the morning; my mother’s voice on the other end of the line telling me my brother had been killed. The cry and the silence in the moments that followed contained the knowledge that the pain of sorrow had just permeated my life and was about to sweep over my family with transforming waves of excruciating measure.

As the story unfolded over the next year and a half, we heard there was an airman who had arrived at the scene and stayed with Noah. Today, I found out that that airman was you.

I wish there were words to express to you how I am feeling right now.

Do you know what you did for my family?

You watched over our beloved Noah when we couldn’t...We have sat beside 2 others in our ranks as they breathed their last, but Noah died suddenly on the side of the road in a state far away. We weren’t there to hold his hand or stroke his head or let him go or send him off in a shower of our tears; we didn’t get to remind him that we loved him or assure him that we’d see him again. Miles separated us.

But you were there, Jhosselin. You stopped and you gave us an incredible gift when you stayed beside him. You gave us your time and your presence and the sweetness of knowing that he was not alone; because you were brave and you were there.

And to say “thank you” seems so minute a statement in relation to the proportion of kindness you showed my family.

I thank you for your gift to us: You counted the trauma you would have to endure by encountering someone in his broken state as worth the cost. You chose to stop and you chose to stay amid the bloody mess of a life lost because you counted this stranger in a pool of blood as someone’s loved one.

And he was loved, SO loved.
And he is missed, SO missed.

And though my words fail, my gratitude toward you is immense, and I pray the Lord would pour blessing over you that is far greater than I could ever think to ask or imagine.

With so much love,
Hannah

Theo David McLean

I found out today that I did, in fact, lose my baby.

I had been hoping, truly hoping, that I was just another one of the 20-40% who bleed during pregnancy.

When I shared the test results with my sister, she apologized for helping me hope. But honestly, I would rather spend my time hoping than worrying; I would rather waste my time hoping than waste it despairing; I would rather run the risk of greater disappointment because I hoped than run the risk of being broadsided by good news because I was wallowing in anxiety and fear. I am grateful for her hope that filled in the gaps of my own; a lovely gift to help the time pass by without the pain it could have held. Thank you, sister friend, for helping me hope.

It’s been a strange few days between the first tears I shed and the affirmation that my son didn’t make it.

First I became vividly aware that though his life was still news to me, my heart already loved him. I wept for a life I only knew existed for 6 days and for the pain of possibly being separated from this tiny child who not only rested beneath my heart, but who already filled it.

And then I sat in prayer on Wednesday, praising the Lord with an honest heart. And as we sang and worshipped and blessed Him, I felt my womb cramping as the life inside it was snuffed out. And I thought how strange it felt to rejoice in Life as death occurred inside of me.

Because I think I knew, even though I held out hope that I was wrong, I knew he was gone that day: May 6, 2015.

I named him as I sat before the Lord that night. Theo, which means “divine gift.” Something that is divine is either something that is from the Lord or something that is for the Lord. I knew that Theo was a gift from God, and as I sat in wait and wonderment at the reality I faced, I told the Lord that He wouldn’t have to take my son from me. If He wanted my child to bypass earth, I would give him to the Lord with an open heart. Because a gift is always given, never taken. “Come what may,” I told Him, “Theo is a divine gift.”

God is good, you know. When my doctor called me, I was with my family; the ones who have walked with me through all my losses. Their tears were real as they hugged me; their hugs were full of that physical love that assures me things will be ok. And I was grateful that, though the place to receive the news was not ideal, the people were just who I needed beside me when I heard that my baby didn’t make it.

So now I face the unknown; emptiness echoes with sadness where giggles of excitement rang; innocent wonderings about the growth of my family leave me sober; the baby outfit I ordered in eager anticipation will show up in the mail and there will be no one to wear it; and Mother’s Day will reveal that one of my children will never be in my arms this side of heaven.

It’s been a strange few days,
and I am sad.

Until heaven, my tiny son.

To testify to the next generation.

As I was taking my baby out of her highchair the other day, I looked into her tiny face and heard these words come out of my mouth, “I am going to share with you the testimonies of the things that God has done in my life and your faith is going to be strengthened because of it...because that is how it works.”

I stopped for a moment and considered these words that seemed to spring out of nowhere. I thought of the times throughout scripture where God tells His people He’s going to do something wonderful and instructs them to, as we see in Joel 1:3, “Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.” Or in Exodus 13:8 “You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’”

I’m not just talking about instruction...instruction is not enough. I’m talking about testifying to the faithfulness, to the praiseworthiness, to the might, to the worth, to the honor of God. I am talking about setting alongside the Truth of scripture the realities of scripture played out in our lives.

I am so convinced of this that I have purposed that throughout my children’s life I will tell them what God is doing in me and for me as we go along; and as they grow, I am going to pray that the Lord provides opportunities for me to tell them how He carried me through loss, how He healed me in illness, how He freed me from sin, how He changed my heart to feel compassion, and how He magnified Himself in marvelous ways throughout every moment of joy and pain and all the circumstances that spanned them. And I am going to purpose to show them things like how to pray your way to peace in times of trouble, and how to lean on Him in time of need, and how to be satisfied in Him when life is altogether unsatisfying, and how to praise Him in times of blessing, and how to stand on His promises in a shifting world.

And their faith will be strengthened because of it; because the testimonies of the Lord lead to things such as joy, hope, courage, awe, understanding, assurance, wisdom, the acceptance of salvation and holiness.

Because God is real and testimonies of Him hold power.

Because He is a wonderful God.

TO DO: Write about "The Gathering"

I’ve written about a lot of things surrounding Noah’s death.
I wrote about the phone call that rocked my world
I wrote about seeing his coffin for the first time
I wrote about facing his dead body
I wrote about carrying him and burying him
I wrote about a lot of things
and the feelings and sounds that accompanied them...
but there is one thing I haven’t dared
to put on paper:
the last thing that is required of me
to write about.

On my list it says, “The Gathering.”
The gathering together of my family
the morning after Noah’s death.

There are probably many reasons why this
paralyzes my fingers
and causes the shields around my heart to raise
in a stubborn, protective hardness... 
but mostly I think it is simply
the immense multiplication of pain
that accompanied this necessary coming together.

It is one thing to confront your own losses;
to feel the shattering inside
and the piercing pain of what was loved
ripped from you
dislodging pieces that you will never get back...
but it is another thing all together
to come face to face
with the others you love who did not leave you
and to look into their beautiful faces
at the realities of crushing sorrow
unimaginable pain
crumbled dreams and hearts.
There is a helplessness that washes over you
and grips your throat so that you cannot speak
as you hold onto them,
one by one,
unable to heal or rescue or revive
without the strength to move the stones that have fallen upon their shoulders
whose jagged edges have penetrated the soul
and knocked the breath from within.

My husband drove me home
(home will always be where my parents are).
I left the car and walked into the silent house
not quite knowing what I would find inside.
On the table sat a picture of my Noah,
dressed to the T in his Air Force attire,
beside it stood a vase of flowers
denoting sympathy.
I walked into the living room
where the members of my family had begun to gather
and someone stood to embrace me.
It was like I had finally reached a safe place
to release the wave of sorrow that had welled up in me
in the time I should have slept the night before.
One by one
I looked into their beautiful faces
our sadness and brokenness colliding for the first time
causing us to fall together into an embrace that held the other up.
One by one
I looked into their beautiful faces
and the weight of their shattered worlds
met the weight of mine
with deep understanding
that allowed us the freedom to crumble.
One by one...

The 9 of us arrived over that Sunday and Monday,
though mere months before we had been scattered across the country,
God had brought us all in varying measures closer
simplifying the logistics of togetherness for us.

I found my feet to be heavy
as if weights kept them from running to meet
my loved ones as they arrived;
knowing the pain I would find in their embrace
would cause my heart to overflow yet again.

But finally the gathering was complete
and we sat together in heaps around the living room
we had grown up together in
and spoke of the newest gaping hole we had to face
and the wonder of the boy man who had filled it.
And though the coming together
was a pain unlike others I have known
the peace of each others’ presence was enough
to nourish my shattered world
with the promise of healing and
the reality that we did not sorrow alone.

And sometimes that is enough
for the moments
that paralyze my fingers
when my mind thinks upon them.

I love you all,
my Papa
and my Mama
my Abigail Ruth
my Joshua Michael John
my Jacob Olaf
my Nathanael Martin
my Naomi Anne
my Rachel Helen
my Eve Elizabeth
my Samuel Andrew
I would gladly walk with you
through any fire
that you would not have to walk alone.
I will gladly share in every sorrow
that must flow across your beautiful faces
and will forever be grateful
that you are willing to share in mine.