Buck Up, Buttercup!

Humor In Chaos

Searching for Joy Series

Buck Up, Buttercup! 

Resilience.

Damn. That’s a tough word.

Not as tough as forgiveness. Not as tough as love when a love is falling apart. Still. Tough.

Nothing points out a person’s weakness as a trauma.

I remember when my brother used to wrestle in high school. This was back in the early to mid 1980s. He used to put on black plastic garbage bags and run for miles to build muscle and lose water weight. He would return home hot and sweaty and beet red and gross. I used to think, “Man. That takes gumption.” He has been through things in his life that take way more gumption than those plastic bag runs.

I used to think I was tough. People told me I was. No. I was not. I am now.

Nothing will test you like betrayal.

Nothing will grow you like betrayal – if you let it.

That’s the secret. I had to be willing to ride the wave and get to the other side. I had to persevere. Perseverance becomes resilience, the strength to endure.

In 1999, (this has nothing to do with the Prince song even though I love Prince) I was headed out for an archaeological dig, and I was scared out of my mind. I didn’t want anyone to know I was scared. I was heading from Minnesota to the dessert in the southeastern corner of Oregon for a six-week stint in a tent, with no running water, no electricity, with a group of strangers, to dig up the garbage of dead people. And it was amazing! If I could go back and do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate even though I was leaving behind two of my babies and another dear child I was helping care for as my best friend in the whole world was overcoming her own divorce. My husband was going to be a single parent for a while. He did great, by the way.

That job and the trip to get there was no walk in the park. I was going by myself, not sure my youngest son would remember me when I returned, not sure I was going to survive the mountain lions (which turned out to be a legitimate concern), not sure I was strong enough to do the job, not sure I was hearty enough to camp for six weeks, not sure this wasn’t some sort of commune-style “sexcapade,” and not sure I could haul all the gear by myself. For some reason, the last on that list of “not sures” was what scared me the most, handling my own gear. I had my tent, my sleeping bag, two huge boxes, and a suitcase. All 5’2.5” of me, myself, and I. If I couldn’t handle my gear, then I had no business being out there in the first place.

I took a plane from Minneapolis to Boise, a bus from Boise up to Pullman, Washington, found the campus, found the professor running the dig, and hitched a ride with the team to the Owyhee River Canyon in Oregon where the dig took place. Just me. Little ole’ me. All that gear.

I did it. That was one of the best experiences of my life. It was hard. It was challenging. Sometimes I cried. I nearly passed out from the dessert heat. I did pass out one night from the excessive alcohol. Man! What a personal accomplishment.

There were things I needed to find my own gumption to survive. I had a rattlesnake eat a toad under my tent while I was trying to lie down on my sleeping bad and journal my experiences. I nearly drowned trying to forge my way across a river to see some petroglyphs. My right arm swelled up dramatically from an attack by fire ants. That hurt. And, on the last night, when most of us were drunk, our entire camp survived a rousing battle between a pack of either wolves or coyotes and at least one mountain lion. Most of all, I survived being away from my babies and my husband for six weeks! That was the hardest part.

Well, I did go home for a weekend in the middle of the three weeks for a couple of days. Everyone needed a break, and I needed some cuddle time.

That trip was amazing! My opinion, everyone should take a trip at least once in their life that challenges them, causes them to test their internal muster. I came back from that trip believing I could handle anything life threw at me.

Granted, that wasn’t true. I couldn’t handle just anything. There was plenty heading my way I was not seeing in the windshield of my life. However, I was more prepared. And, I understood that taking things one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time, continuing to move forward, was the way to go. That was the biggest lesson.

That does not mean I didn’t have some help. I did. From a most unexpected source – my husband. He was multiple states away, and this was before cell phones were in every pocket on the street. He had no way of knowing I was in trouble. I was. And he came riding in like a white knight on a his steed.

It happened when I arrived in Pullman, Washington. Pullman is a college town. It was an even smaller college town back in 1999.

The bus entered town on a Sunday evening and drove right past the hotel I knew I had a reservation to stay the night. Sunday. 1999. Small town. In the summer of a college town. That means everything was closed, and the place was deserted.

The bus went all the way to the other side where the bus stop was in front of a closed, very small, convenience store. Not very convenient considering it was closed.

I looked around. The sun was setting, and there wasn’t another person in sight. The driver dumped off my stuff and drove off. I felt as if I may as well have already been in the dessert alone with the rattlesnakes and the mountain lions.

In less than ten minutes, out of the blue came an unmarked, white, old beater van. The kind small kids are taught to run away from as fast as possible. It pulled up next to me. The side door opened, and this teen boy says, “Are you Sarah? Your husband sent me.”

No joke.

My husband had a feeling I was going to be in dire straits at that moment in time and sent in the cavalry in the shape of a teenager in a scary van. The teen was a worker at the hotel. They were too small an establishment for a transportation service. He borrowed the van from someone else who worked there.

He grabbed all my stuff and took me straight to the hotel. My biggest regret was that I did not have the cash on me to tip him. I wanted to give him a huge tip. He deserved it.

So did my husband. I cried as I called and thanked him.

I prayed that was a sign how the rest of the trip would be, and it was. Whenever I needed aide, aide was there, in some form or another. And I had such an amazing experience learning how to trust in the unseen when circumstances appeared dire.

And my husband? I was so deeply grateful to him. How amazing he followed the urge God gave him to serve me. Thank you, Jesus!

To this day, whenever I want to throw in the towel and believe my ex is not a good person, I think back to that experience, and others, and remember how good he is deep down.

That wonderful, challenging experience was only the start of building up my resilience to survive disease and divorce. And they weren’t all I had to face.

Things came in overlapping waves. I lost more than my health and my marriage. Before them was a crime and a different type of betrayal from friends.

The thing is, it was as if one built upon the other even though they were separate incidents involving different people. Sometimes I feel as if God gave us the first to prepare for the second, to get stronger for the third, to become as strong as necessary for the last one, the divorce. Because I have to say the one that hurt me the most and was the most difficult to endure. I really didn’t want to lose the marriage.

I couldn’t stop the divorce no more than I could stop a freight train barreling into the station with no intentions of slowing down. It was going to happen.

This is another reason for having gratitude as we endure trials and tribulations. There is always something else around the corner. None of us are immune. The best thing we can do is take it.

How do prize fighters become prize fighters? They spar. Same with martial arts.

This very morning I write this, I was at a Bible study at my church. One of the women there was in the beginning stages of enduring the pain of grieving the death of her grandson – a deputy sheriff shot in the line of duty while sitting at a red light in his patrol vehicle. That’s all he was doing. A car pulled up alongside and shot him. This woman’s grandson was in the arms of Our Father in that very moment.

It was my turn to deliver the opening prayer, and she, the grandmother, was sitting front and center looking up at me. I don’t know her personally, and I did not know her grandson; but, people I know did. There were tears all over the room. Continuous prayers going up at every individual table. It’s a big room. Lots of tables. The Spirit answering those prayers was palpable.

There she was. Looking at me. The prayer I had carefully written, including her grandson, in my shaking hands.

I am not afraid of speaking in front of people. I have done it many times. Public speaking is not a fear of mine. I get a little nervous at first, but that’s all. This morning, standing there, I was afraid. I was afraid of causing her more pain than she was already in.

I looked around the room. All eyes were on me. They wanted me to pray for him. I wanted to pray for her. I realized the only eyes I felt were hers. Her son was likely at peace. She was not. She was looking for it. That was not lost on me. Plus, he was a deputy sheriff, a man who worked to bring peace to our community. All were in search of peace.

I said my prayer. It was short. It was insufficient. It was the best I could do. I had tears all the way through it, feeling the pain of this woman even though I could not comprehend it. I wanted to be a friend to this stranger.

I sat back at my table. We had our Bible study. At the end, a group of women went over to pray over this grandmother to help her feel their love. Before we joined them, another woman at my table, a woman who has been a friend to me for at least a dozen years now and is in the midst of a cancer battle herself and has endured loss herself talked with me a moment. I don’t know who said it first. We kind of both did. We took note that these times of great loss have a tendency to provide one great blessing: they bring people together in praise and worship. Blessings do come from them when given time to grow. We were taking part in that growth for that grandmother right there.

That doesn’t make it okay that her grandson was murdered in cold blood. Still, his passing created room for great strength to grow.

God wants to bring forth beauty and strength from our trials. We need to let him in to do his will.

Resiliency. Don’t be afraid of it. It’s there to serve you.

Thank you, Jesus, for Your will to be done.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more!

Sarah

Humor In Chaos

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