An Upside Down Kingdom

   One year, six months, ten days, and three hours ago my daughter died. My vibrant, healthy, passionate, God-fearing twelve year old daughter was gone just like that - in a blink of an eye. If you haven't heard that story, you can read here, I only ask you do so with a modicum of compassion (the comments have left me a shell of a human being at times - and yes I have wondered some of the same things - how can a child still die of something so stupid in this day in age...). This is every parent's worst nightmare, one that you think will never happen to you. I discovered it is a nightmare you live over and over every day when you wake up and realize all over again - that a person you carried inside your body, that you poured your very existence into day in and day out - is gone...FOREVER...The End. A part of you, the essence of you, dies with your child. And that is how I have been walking around for the last year and a half: the walking dead - feeling like a shell of a person. This comes with a whole other set of grief as you mourn the loss of yourself in relationship to other people. You know what an amazing wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend you were before your child died and now you feel like you are letting the whole team down...one breath at a time...every day... disappointing.

     However, the other thing I was when my daughter died was a believer in Christ. God had done some pretty amazing things for me over the course of my life. I had been raised in the church and really established a relationship of my very own with God when I was 19 years old. That relationship had sustained me through ups and downs, but mostly I had led a pretty sweet life. I enjoyed going to church and singing songs about how great God is. When my daughter died I had to ask myself, so do you really believe all that stuff or not? My daughter had believed, all on her own, with every fiber in her. I'm not gonna lie, initially that helped me not curse God and die, but as weeks turned into months, and months turned into a year - the pain of losing her seemed so much bigger than anything I could ever believe. Church was one of the most painful places on the planet for me because she was everywhere in that building. I could visualize her worshipping on the front row, hands raised, singing off key at the top of her lungs. It was where we held her memorial and said goodbye to her. It became the last place on earth I wanted to be. And yet I kept believing. I couldn't pray or have faith for anything - how could I trust that God would not say no just like he said no to healing my daughter's body? But I reread scriptures that were important to her. I listened to meaningful worship songs at home as I sobbed and sobbed. I still believed that God is good and true and real and loves us more than anything, I just didn't feel it anymore. Occasionally I would just repeat scripture or truths from hymns as I heaved and blubbered. I told God I didn't feel it but I was choosing to say it anyway. I believed in Him before, I was going to believe in Him now.
   
      This is how I ended up at a mission's conference at my church shortly after the one year anniversary of my daughter dying. Yes the place that was the most painful for me, I went willingly, because I felt like I needed to be there, for some reason. I knew missions was so important to Taylor and it devastated me that she never made it out of the country on a trip. So I reasoned, I would go for Taylor. Speaker after speaker were so impacting but I felt emotionally disemboweled when one speaker stated the following: "The world encourages us to find ourselves. God encourages us to lose ourselves. Look at Stephen (Acts 7). He was so equipped and yet God in all His wisdom allowed him to die." Folks, I went into the ugly cry right there in the midst of a daytime conference. You see my daughter was one of the most promising people. Teachers, fellow students, friends, everyone who encountered her thought so. She had so...much....potential. And yet, I was there as she died, and heard her last words, "I'm sorry." I furiously tried to breath life back into her, tried to pound it back into her, there was no reason I should not have been successful. I have pondered those words she said after her body initially collapsed. She briefly came to, looked straight at me and said, "I'm sorry." She was not an apologetic girl. She didn't coyly dole out sorry. No Taylor would never rarely apologize for her opinions or actions and only then when it was justifiable and necessary. False humility and shrinking back were not in her nature and when you read the many journals she left behind - there was no deep secrets for which an apology was necessary. I knew, even in that moment, that she had seen the face of God in that first moment of unconsciousness, and she chose Him. She came back just long enough to tell us she was sorry, because she loved us, but she was choosing to be there. Taylor was a Stephen. I needed a passport.

     A couple of months later long time friend, Kristen Burke of Lighthouse Ministries, called me out of the blue. I've been praying about who to take to Cambodia and I felt like God said I should ask you. What do you think?" I was all in, no questions asked. I had no idea what God could possibly do through me or why I was going, but I was going. I posted a fundraising video on my Facebook page and the response was overwhelming. O.k., now I was REALLY going. I didn't feel any differently. I still felt like the same shattered shell of a human being. I talked with my mom a few days before I left telling her that I had no idea why I was going on this trip and definitely felt like I had nothing to give.

     As Lewis Burke drove Kristen and I to the Atlanta airport for our departure he shared the following with me: "I feel like you think you are going on this trip for one reason, but God has another reason in mind." I knew it was true as soon as the words left his lips. Honestly, I could not put into words why I was going on this trip other than to try to honor the dreams of my daughter. A few days later on the trip, I would open a letter from my pastor/brother-in-law Jeff Oakes. His words echoed those of Lewis. You think you are going for one purpose, but God has something else in mind. We went to the orphanage. I played with the kids. I shared when asked to share, but nothing earth shaking happened. I didn't feel any differently. I was just trying to be obedient, to put one foot in front of the other, to shut up and to serve. On our last night at the orphanage we prayed for each of the children. Afterwards Vutha, the local pastor and current administrator at the orphanage said he had a bible story to share with Kristen and I. We had been listening to the children share bible stories all week that Vutha had taught them so this seemed more of the same. Then he began to share the story from Acts 3 of the lame man being healed. I knew the story, but as soon as he began to speak it, I knew it was a life changing word for me. I knew it was Father God saying, "You are asking for one thing, but I am going to give you something so much greater." As Vutha told the story of the lame man asking Peter and John for some money I began to weep. However, these were not the bitter tears I had been unable to control for the last year and a half of my life. Instead, these were cleansing tears. Tears of deep joy, at feeling seen and understood, feeling loved and cared for all at the same time. I had been looking anywhere and everywhere for a little respite from my pain. Like the lame man, I was seeking so desperately to take care of myself, provide for myself in all the lameness that is losing a child but here was God breaking in to give me so much more to heal my broken heart, to make me feel like a real person again.

    

      For the remaining days of the trip I began to feel lighter and lighter. By the time my feet walked through my front door in East Tennessee I was feeling every bit the hopeful girl I had been for 41 years of my life before the unthinkable happened. I went to honor my daughter. God went to give me hope and life once again.
   
      I titled this very long blog post "The Upside Down Kingdom". Shortly after Taylor died, I heard the words "upside down kingdom" rattling around in my head and knew God was trying to say His ways are not our ways. I meditated on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5) for many months after she passed, the very crux of upside thinking. Little did I know that God would take this Westerner who had led a very charmed life all the way to the Third World to heal her. Missions isn't about us exporting some American dream, riding in our white horse to save the "less fortunate". Missions is about all people, in every tribe and every tongue, encountering the One who created them and loves them more than anything. I am one of those people and God used a Chinese pastor living in Cambodia to care for me. He was the missionary, not me. Yes, maybe I had the means to travel across the world, but He had the something greater than silver and gold. He had the living God who cares for me inside of him. I don't know why my daughter died or why God had me go half way around the world to give me my life back. I quit needing all the answers a long time ago. All I know is that He is real. He is everything good and right. Death and mess of this world were never his plan and He has been working mysteriously every since to reconcile us all back to perfect Love.