On Grief - Hope

Marla wrote the word on a neon green poster board with black sharpie. “Hope”. 

My sister had been named for three of our great aunts, and the name Hope seemed to fit everything about her. My mom was never supposed to have children, and she knew since teenage-hood that she wanted to adopt, so as a teenager, she began praying for her future children she would have through adoption. It was a miracle when she got pregnant with me, and another miracle when she had my brother. But the miracle that completed our little family came four years after he was born, when we adopted my sister. ​​

She came from another mama who loved her so deeply she knew she needed to let another family raise her. And on April 22, 2002, Kristel was born into two families. Her birth family and her adoptive family. My mom was the first to hold her and cut her umbilical cord (while my dad raced through airports to get to the hospital as quickly as possible). My Gamma came to my elementary school and told me that a baby sister had been born! I anxiously waited the two weeks until they brought her home.

Hope.

I prayed for a brother. Then I prayed for my sister, and the Lord heard the prayers of a little girl and gave me both. I’ve known for my entire life that He is a hearing God because of this.

So the night when I found out she had attempted suicide, I circled the island in my kitchen and repeated again and again, “I prayed for her! God! I prayed for her!” I wanted to run out the door and punch the trees in my yard just to let out the pain that was welling up within me. I was so angry. Not at her. Not at God. I think I was angry at the brokenness in the world. I was angry at the enemy. I was angry that he gets to think that he wins temporarily. But I didn’t run. I didn’t punch anything. I just circled that island and whispered to God, “I prayed for her!”

I circled in prayer again a few days later, this time with my parents. We circled Krissie laying in her hospital bed on life support. This night was crucial and as I prayed during the day, I knew I had heard from the Lord but I wasn’t content with what He told me and I decided I was going to pull a Jacob. I was going to wrestle with God and I was not going to stop until He blessed me. I took off my shoes, because I knew this wrestling would take place on holy ground. And I decided I would not sit for the entire night. This wrestling would be done on my knees and on my feet.

We circled her bed, passing the dozens of pictures we had put up on the walls around her bed and the bright green sign that read “Hope”.

We weren’t placing our hope in doctors or in medicine. Doctors had once told my mom that she would never conceive children. We weren’t placing our hope in the things we could see. My parents once couldn’t see how they’d be able to afford the adoption fees for my sister. We were placing our hope in the only one who could give us hope. Jesus. Who is our living and breathing hope.

Sometimes, God answers our prayers the way we want and expect Him to. Sometimes, He doesn’t. When I was seven and praying for a baby sister, God didn’t give me that miracle by opening my mom’s womb (that didn’t even exist anymore thanks to a full hysterectomy), He gave it through a beautiful redemption story.

God didn’t heal my sister on this side of heaven. We didn’t get to see the exact miracle we were praying for, but He gave us our miracle through a beautiful redemption story that happened nearly 2,000 years before.

Hope.

Living hope.

We know my sister chose to follow Jesus as a little girl. He called her. He chose her. He redeemed her. As our student pastor said, she had a “Renewed heart but a tormented mind”. She placed her trust in the living source of hope.

I’ve been writing for a women’s Bible study for a while now, and I’m about to write my last few studies before wrapping up that chapter of my life. We change up the theme and what we’re studying every three weeks. A few months before I said goodbye to my foster sons and then became a single mama, I studied then wrote about Jesus being our living hope. The really neat thing about these studies I’ve been writing for four years, is that the Lord always seems to work out that I’m writing about what I’m walking through. We get our writing assignments months in advance. For example: I’m going to be writing about Song of Songs but I’ve had this assignment for six months. When I began studying about and writing about Jesus being our living hope, I’d had that assignment for a very long time, but God knew exactly when I would need that truth fresh on my mind. As my world literally began swirling from the chaos that typically leads up to a separation then divorce, I would ground myself by focusing on something in front of me and saying over and over, “Jesus is my living hope. He is right here, right now. He’s living. He is hope. All of my trust is in Him.”

My world was blurry.

Everything felt as if it swirled into one big clump of fear, anxiety, sorrow, and anger.
Imagine all kinds of chewed bubblegum smooshed into one big ball and rolled around, leaving sticky on everything it touches. That’s what my life felt like. Swirling colors and emotions and leaving my sticky everywhere. Or imagine crying while driving, when all of the world is blurred into one and you’re probably a huge danger on the road, but you blink and it all goes back to normal for a second then gets blurry all over again while more tears sting your eyes.

I met with my pastor and his wife in the middle of the swirl and let everything I’d kept inside spill from my lips, laying my embarrassment, shame, and broken heart at their feet. I looked down at my toes waiting to hear that it was too much for them, it was too blurry and they weren’t really sure what to do with me. I showed them my sticky gumball and put it in their hands waiting to see if the sugary-slobbery-sticky mess was just too much for their hands to handle.

But it wasn’t.

Karen and Merle have a beautiful relationship I’ve had the privilege to witness over the years, but twice they’ve sat before me with genuine sorrow in their faces as they spoke words of life and encouragement. The first time was this time, when I handed them my slobbery gumball of a life. Karen, a licensed therapist, and Merle, a pastor for many, many years gave me practical next steps. Merle spoke and Karen nodded in agreement with him, then Karen spoke while Merle did the same. Together they told me that trying to undo this entire mess all at once wasn’t going to happen right now and I’d probably get incredibly overwhelmed trying to do it, but we can focus on just one thing. We could pull off just one of those sticky pieces of gum. And we made an action plan for the next few days. When we pulled off one piece of gum, a few other pieces came with it, and I was able to separate those a little easier. I called a therapist that Karen recommended who specialized in trauma. I knew that for the next few days, everything was going to be ok, and eventually, it would all be ok.

Hope.

The second time they sat before me was in a tiny room in the hall of the PICU at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City. We knew that my sister had most-likely ran into the arms of Jesus already, but thanks to modern medicine, her heart was still beating and her lungs were still breathing, and we had a very hard decision to make. My family huddled together in this tiny room as Karen and Merle reminded us that there are no wrong decisions here. We get to choose what we need to do. My brother, KJ, spoke up, reminding us all that Krissie’s plan had been to be a paramedic. She cared about life. Krissie cried when the smallest creature suffered, and she found joy in the weeds and flowers that most people didn’t even notice. No life was unnoticed or unloved by Krissie. We had the opportunity to help many people by gifting them the organs that had given Krissie life while she was earthside, but that meant her heart kept beating and her lungs kept breathing, even though her soul didn’t inhabit the body any more, while the transplant team looked for the perfect recipients. More time in the hospital and a few more days of this just seemed daunting and hard, but we chose to do it. We didn’t get our miracle on this side of heaven, but we knew that in just a few days, even hours as some people received a phone call, they would be getting theirs. And as it turned out...

Krissie’s body was made for this.

God, in His sovereignty, knowing before she was born that we would be sitting in this room, making this decision (even though this was never His will), gave Krissie an O- blood type. The type of blood that can be received by anyone.

Krissie, who was passionate about life and wanted to save lives as a career, was able to save many in this final act of generosity.

We continued to pray over her body the next few days, this time we prayed for her specific organs. We prayed for the people that would be receiving these organs. We prayed for the people who would get to see for the first time thanks to her donated corneas. (Krissie had literally perfect eyesight. I can’t imagine waking up every morning and just being able to see clearly, but Krissie did.) We prayed for the people who needed her bone marrow and skin grafts. We thanked the Lord for Krissie, that we got to hold this earthly body of hers.

I can’t just keep writing without telling you, that I am accessing a part of my heart I don’t access daily, or even weekly. I keep the little details of these hospital days and the days after in a room in my heart. Sometimes I pull out the key as if I’m going to open the door to that room, but then I tuck it back in my pocket because I know when I open that door, the grief will literally blow me away and sink me to my knees. When I write, I have to pull out the key and actually open the door, and this is gut-wrenching to write about. It takes me days. I have tears pouring down my cheeks constantly, and, remember, I’m just barely getting back into this crying thing, so it’s a lot for me.

But this book is on grief, so I have to allow myself to feel that grief. Even if it knocks me over and leaves me breathless. And as the grief blows past me, as if it has just been waiting to get out, what keeps me planted so I don’t go blowing away with the grief, is hope. I may be crumpled on the floor, but there’s hope. Constant, steady, hope.

Hope that the grief won’t always hurt quite so much.
Hope that I will get to see Krissie again - this earth is not our home.
Hope that while her physical life is over, her story isn’t and I get to talk about her always.
Hope that is living and breathing because Jesus is living and breathing.

Kristel Renee Hope Stahl.

That’s her.

When I say her name, I don’t imagine a hospital bed and a funeral. I don’t imagine our final days with her, although I can get there pretty easily. No, I imagine her great, big smile that lit up an entire room. I imagine her laugh and picture her little eye roll at me and my mom fashion. I imagine her soft hands and perfect pixie nose. I imagine her holding a tiny bird with a flower crown on her head, the wind softly blowing her hair. I imagine her spunky walk and the curls in her sandy-colored hair.

I prayed as a little girl. The Lord heard and transformed those prayers, as if creating them out of the dust of the earth itself, into the body of a baby. He breathed into that body and my prayers came to life.

Hope.

For the last two Christmases, the song “O Holy Night” has been a balm to my soul that was cracked and aching during the holiday seasons. My first Christmas as a single mama, I had taken my girls to the Christmas tree farm we always go to, and we cut down the tree together. I did it. As a single mama with three toddlers in tow, in the biting cold, I sawed the tree down and dragged it back to the area where they trim the lower branches and net the tree for you. Mind you, I chose a tree that was maybe 20 yards away from there, and the tree was so tiny it could fit in the back of my Honda pilot, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? I mean, what matters is that I did it. As I sat in my living room with this tiny Charlie Brown Christmas tree all lit up and leaning to the right, I kept repeating over and over, “the weary world rejoices”.

I was weary. I felt like the entire world was weary that Christmas (I’d like to note that 2018 Christmas looks pretty mild compared to 2020 Christmas and the weariness in the world… I’m feeling it already and summer isn’t even over yet).

The weary world rejoices.

I captioned a Christmas Instagram post with this:

Christmas hymns have been so powerful to me this season… each phrase I will meditate on for a while before moving onto the next. The one that has resonated within me so deeply this season: “A thrill of hope. The weary world rejoices.” Does that not speak to us right now? I mean, yes, it was totally fitting for when Jesus was actually born as weary Jewish families waited for the prophecies that spanned hundreds of years of a Savior to rescue them from the government. But Jesus didn’t come for a seat in government. No. He came and IS King.
And friends, man our world is weary. From natural disasters to political parties that can’t seem to cooperate. From millions of people without access to clean water, to terrorist attacks happening globally. From mental illness to physical illness, broken homes to broken hearts… we are weary!
But Jesus. “A THRILL”.
That goosebump, shiver up my spine kind of thrill. That deep in the chest, high in the belly kind of excitement. That HOPE.
Jesus is our HOPE! And because of that, this weary world… we get to rejoice.
Rejoice!
As my sweet pastor said this weekend… we don’t have to sit around and question, “What is this world coming to!”
Oh no.
We get to say: “Look Who is coming to the world!”
A thrill of hope.
The weary world rejoices.

I think that God, in His goodness, was preparing me for what was to come in four short months when I said “See you later” to my little sister. He was reminding me that though the world is weary, though it seems to be crumbling and everything is falling apart, Hope is here and it isn’t going anywhere. Or, rather, He isn’t going anywhere.

Hope.

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