Truly Transparent

Hi! My name is Cristyn and I'm transparent...(this is the part of the blog where you say, "Hi Cristyn"). I used to think this was a huge problem that I had...being transparent, but in the last week I've come to really embrace it. What does transparent mean? I'm not talking clear (like cyran wrap) here, I'm talking Webster's Dictionary language here. However, for me it means being real, truly 100% nothing held back real. That is me. I wear my heart on my sleeve and love like crazy! All that to say that right now, Sunday, June 22, 2008 I'm not okay. People keep asking if I'm okay and the truth of it is I'm not. Now that doesn't mean i don't believe I won't be okay, it just means right now in this season things are a little dark. The light is hard to find. I'm holding on to a hope that makes me feel like a fool, to a love that quite honestly isn't being shared. But after falling on my knees while shower water beats on my back, I can finally hear God say, "it's okay, you are okay, you are good enough." I've been waiting weeks to hear God say that, but you know why I couldn't hear him...it was because I wasn't seeking, i wasn't waiting on him. Nope, instead I was "busy." Busy studying, busy helping everyone else and not seeking it myself. Now I'm at a crossroads where I truly desire to get to the other side, but I'm completely unsure of how to get there.

It has been 12 weeks (that's 3 months) since my precious nephew died. To all you math majors out there that translates to 90 days. So to the typical observer (in other words, someone on the outside) I should be healed, I should be okay by now. That's not their fault, you can't understand everything and you certainly cannot understand every life situation that someone else endures. But I'm not healed, I'm not "okay." In fact all of a sudden while driving home the other night I realized that he is not coming back. He's not in Colorado with his sweet family, he isn't sick and in the hospital. He is in Heaven with Jesus and I can't hold him, I can't sing to him, I can't kiss him, I can't make him laugh. No, all i can do now is visit his gravesite and close my eyes tightly enough that I believe I can feel him in my arms again. That I can remember his sweet, controlled breath on me as he slept on my chest only a few weeks after he was born. That is all I have left of him. But thankfully, as I watch his precious older sister play and laugh and live I know that a part of him lives inside of her, deep in her heart.

Life has been so unexpected these last several months, like life usually is, but I had no idea that it would hit so hard so much later. I've been so busy trying to figure out my next "move" that I couldn't even admit that I'm not okay, that my heart is truly truly hurting and broken. I hate having to pick up the pieces and start all over again, and this time is so much different, this time the little pieces have little pieces of their own. This heartache makes recovering from anorexia look like a piece of cake (kind of ironic, don't you think?).

So as I move slowly through this season of healing, I have to remember that God is the God who gives, but He also takes away and in spite of it all, no matter what move He makes, I will choose to say "blessed be your name." And for as long as it takes I'll say it until I truly believe it. I also will choose to remind myself of what Oswald Chambers once said and I close with tonight...

"When God gets us alone through suffering,
heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness,
or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship...
when He gets us absolutely alone,
and we are totally speechless,
unable to ask even one question,
then He begins to teach us."

I am nothing more than an onion learning more and more about me and the God who created me as He slowly but surely peels the layers away.

Original Post: June 23, 2008