The Beginning of a Book...I Mean Blog
Months ago I felt called to write. I thought He meant for me to write a book, so I started a book. I haven't had time to work on it since; so that's not really helping anyone, including me. Lately I've been feeling the need to write again so I decided upon blogging. I still like the first couple chapters I wrote so I'm going to share them with you. I don't know where this journey will take me although I do have a general idea of what I'm going to write about. I have been keeping a journal where I write down memories of Logan that I want to keep fresh and passages from grief or theological books that have affected me and I want to share those passages as well as the way they make me feel or the what I learned from them. I truly hope you learn something from my journey or that it helps you in some way. The following is what I have already written.
Please note, that in the 5 months that have passed since I started the 'book' my beliefs have already shifted; but more on that later.
Chapter 1
It has been 41 days and 6 hours and 55 minutes since Logan’s spirit was able to leave his broken body and soar. I am back home on the farm near Eureka, SD to spend the 4th of July with my family and attend the 1st Annual Logan Rau Memorial Goofy Golf Tournament. Since my 15 month old daughter, HadLee seems to be the only thing to put a smile on my father’s face, I have opted to take a week off of work and spend a longer period of time back home to give my parents some much needed grandbaby time.
I have spent most of the week crafting with my sister-in-law Natalie, or Nattie as we call her, and that doesn’t look like it is going to change any time soon. My mom, Nattie, and HadLee are in Eureka running errands (and looking for more ‘projects’) while my dad is out baling; so I am home, alone. Finally I have some peace and quiet and time just to think or to not think; whatever I feel like. I start my free time by looking at Facebook and I am inundated by posts about the golf tourney, families having fun over the 4th of July, and pictures of the luminaries being lit yesterday, July 5th, by Logan’s friends and family. As I see the luminaries flying from the 50 yard line I start to feel a little guilty; I refused to leave the bar and go to the impromptu ceremony.
Now before you get all uppity about me not leaving the bar of all places, let me explain. It is no secret that I was on the beer cart throughout the golf tournament once I got all of the shirts and stickers and what not organized, the babies happy, and placed all of the things I had gotten for Logan over the last two months at his grave. While on the beer cart all day I was able to visit with all of the golfers, laugh at all of the golfers, and listen to stories about Logan, a pretty awesome way to spend ones day if you ask me. As far as responsible duties, I didn’t have many. HadLee was taken care of by trusted friends and family members and the golf tournament was organized by friends of Logan, all possible responsibilities were off of my shoulders. I did have to do an interview with Keloland, although I didn’t know about it until I had already spent many hours on the golf course, and I did have to give a ‘speech’ or thank- you, I suppose, to the golfers who had stuck it out in the heat all day to finish all 18 rounds, which again I didn’t know about until seconds before it happened. Back to my point: I didn’t have to be responsible for anything and rarely do I get to have fun all day knowing my daughter will be well taken care of all day and all night, as a result I chose to have fun; so no judging!
After I had given my speech late that afternoon, I had my ‘moment’ to fall apart and cry until I couldn’t breathe. Luckily for me, my ‘moment’ first happened on the shoulder of a long-time friend who had just happened to be sitting outside of the door I chose to exit before I let go. Kelsey and I had been good friends in junior high and early high school and she had been a big enough part of my life at one point to know Logan and I’s intricate, and interesting, relationship. She knew me well enough not to try to stop the tears (Rau’s are notorious for being stubborn, so there was no sense in trying to stop what I had already decided to do). She did the best thing anyone can do next to a person who is truly grieving: keep your mouth shut and just let your presence do the consoling. My husband, Matt, had also seen my fast exit so I was quickly able to curl up into his chest and let the tears flow. Shortly after I ‘righted’ myself I saw Shane, one of Logan’s best friends and our cousin, talking to his wife (one of my best friends) on the phone trying to convince her to stay in town and go to the bar with him as opposed to going to Hague, ND for their celebration. He tapped me in for help and with a little whining and I’m sure a little guilt tripping, I of course got my way with Holly. Shortly after, Shane, his brother and I got in the car to head back into town to eat pizza at the bar with his family and wait for Holly.
Now, sometimes I get unexplainable need to be away from those I call my crutches (Matt, mom, dad and Nattie), so I chose not to tell anyone where I was going so they wouldn’t’ tell me ‘no’ or wouldn’t follow. Don’t worry, someone saw me leave with Shane and they tattled on me to my mom and therefore my husband pretty much knew where I was right away. Thankfully he knows me well enough to know when to follow me and when not to. God bless him.
So, now I’m at the bar with about 10 of my brother’s closest friends and their wives or fiancés listening to stories of the Logan Rau I know and love. After a while I get a call from my mother stating that in about 20 minutes they are going to light luminaries from the 50 yard line on the football field. At that point, here are my choices: 1. Stay at the Wolff Den and laugh with Logan’s friends or 2. Go to the football field and cry with Logan’s family. I don’t know about you but if given the choice I want to laugh instead of cry, so that is just what I did. When I’m with Logan’s old classmates and teammates, I can’t help but be transported back to high school and early college days. Those are the years that I drove 4 hours to Logan’s football game and 4 hours back to SDSU in Brookings in one night just to see Logan’s football game (and keep a healthy social life). Those are the years that Logan and I would fight so intensely that it wouldn’t be out of the norm for mom to come home to a hole in the wall, or to Logan’s face and arms scratched up, or to me being bruised from Logan throwing me against a wall (he was a strong little bugger), or to a knot on Logan’s head from a cheap shot I landed on him from a blunt object. Those are the years that I’d overhear someone talking about Logan in a different town, good or bad, and I would turn around and let them know either to clam up because they had no idea what they were talking about or to brag because, “I am Logan Rau’s sister.’
On that note, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hated the fact that for many years I was either known as ‘Logan Rau’s sister’ or that the only way someone would figure out who I was, was to ask them, “Do you know Logan and Shane Rau from the Eureka- Bowdle Patriots ? I’m Logan’s sister.” Of course after that all of the light bulbs were turned on and I was immediately treated like a celebrity. The celebrity status was nice, but I sure wish it didn’t have to come about by the instant recognition of my little brother. Little, of course, is a not an accurate word to describe Logan in any way other than chronologically in relation to me. His personality was not little, his temper was not little, his drive was not little, his hits on the field were not little, his dreams were not little, his mouth was not little and most importantly his heart was not little.
I remember Logan’s old football and track coach as well as one of the high school teachers in Eureka, Mr. Bob Bilotto, once told me a long time ago (and I paraphrase because my mommy brain does not have the memory capacity it used to), ‘Logan may know how to push a person’s buttons but he’s also the first one to ask how you are doing and really care about your answer.’ His revelation about Logan really is the best way to describe him. He could sure piss a person off, but two minutes later you’d be laughing with him.
Back to present time: I am sitting at home, alone with my thoughts, I’ve caught up with Facebook, now what? I could paint more projects or I could look at my magazines but both can also be done with the tiny busy monster around too, neither requires too much focus. So, I go back to a book about grief that I’ve been meaning to finish for two weeks now. I am already to the epilogue and little do I know, only have two pages left, I can absolutely see why I’ve procrastinated reading those two pages. The book I was reading is called, When Life and Beliefs Collide by Carolyn Curtis James. The book talks about the sister’s Mary and Martha and their relationship with Jesus through their friendship with him, their grief from the passing of their brother (Lazarus), and their dismay when Jesus told them he was going to die soon. It’s a great read and has really helped me to realize my need to become closer to Jesus and to learn more about my Father. The next book up from my stack of grief books is An Autumn’s Journey: Deep Growth in the Grief and Loss of Life’s Seasons by Craig D. Lounsbrough. Great I think, another lecture about how everything has its season, but I’ll get to my angst about that theory later. As I start the book, the introduction is written in first person about the author’s personal journey with grief. I get about a page and a half in and I get this nagging thought, ‘you should write about your journey.’ I naturally ignore that voice and keep reading, but the voice became more persistent and then I get the uncontrollable urge to get up and turn my computer on. If I have learned anything throughout the last two months it’s that I need to follow that voice a little more often and to have a whole lot more Faith. So here I am; sitting at the table downstairs typing out my story even though quite frankly, I’m only in the beginning of it as it happens.
I’m going to tell you about what I believe, not because I want you to believe it too, but because I want you to think about what I have to say. I want you to compare it to what you believe to be true in your heart, soul and mind; then if what I say makes sense, adjust as needed. Being a Christian is a learning process throughout your life. A process I’ll discuss further later on in this book. I hope you laugh, you cry, you learn and then you pass this onto someone else.
Chapter 2
As I mentioned before, I’m not a huge fan of the generally accepted meaning behind Ecclesiastes 3:1-3. The passage reads as follows: 1There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under Heaven. 2A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. 3A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up.
From what I understand, the generally accepted meaning is that God has already planned each and every one of our days. He has decided when and how we will die. That when we die, we should die. I just can’t accept that, it does not fit into my belief system.
I believe that He does have a general outline for us. God knows who would best suit us as a life-long partner, he bestows certain talents upon us to help us determine our career path, and I’m sure if I thought long enough I could come up with other things that I think He has predetermined for us, but that’s not my purpose for this passage. My main point is this: God gave us free will. Think about how powerful that last sentence is. He gave us the gift of being able to choose to use the gifts He gives us in any way we choose, or to not use them at all. He gave us the Bible as a guide to help us become closer to Him and to guide us on our life journey. Again I emphasize the words gave, choice, and guide.
I don’t care if 1,000 of the most Holy men and women all came up to me and told me, ‘When someone dies it is because it was their time.’ I still won’t believe it. Now, that may have a little something to do with the Rau stubbornness that I’ve mentioned before but the core of it is this: I will never, ever accept the idea that God takes our loved ones from us. He did not guide the plane my brother was in, into the wind tower, He does not guide the wheel that a drunk driver is behind into a vehicle that is carrying a young family and their newborn child. I simply cannot accept that.
I don’t believe God looks around Heaven, randomly chooses a soul and then decides to send it down to the womb of a crack addicted mother, only to have the child live on earth a few painful minutes and then go right back up to Heaven. I just refuse to accept that, it must just be that Rau stubbornness right?
Nor do I believe that the devil took control of the above mentioned modes of transportation in order to create pain or as an end result of a sinful life that anyone involved may have led. Those ideas are just too simple, they don’t require thought. To me that seems like mindless rhetoric we once heard, memorized and then spew out from time to time without actually thinking about it.
In addition, I don’t think that God looks around Heaven and decides he needs another Angel up with Him. God created us to live happily on Earth. Before the fall of Adam and Eve, there was no pain or death; He wanted us to live and prosper on Earth then just as He does now.
To me, death, whether tragic, glorious, or indifferent, is not predetermined by the Lord. Now, don’t get me wrong. Do I believe He has the power to end a life as He so chooses? Absolutely. Do I believe he exercises that power? No. Every once and while I do think there are those instances that cannot be explained: maybe a mass murderer that is as of yet undetected dies in his sleep before he takes his next life or maybe someone impossibly survives an accident. In my mind, those instances are called miracles. When God intervenes, it is called a miracle. In my belief system it is as simple and as complex as that.
One thing I have already learned is that even between my mother, my father and I; our belief system is a bit different. Of course the core is the same, we believe John 3:16 with all of our heart and we do our best to live our lives in a way that glorifies Him, knowing that we will stumble but that we can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, ask for forgiveness and begin again completely renewed and forgiven.
If you think you know it all and what you learned as a child in Sunday school is the end-all be-all, I’ve got news for you: you are wrong. The only evidence I need to that point is the Bible, it is there for us to read and interpret throughout our lives. The conclusion or lesson that we learn from a passage when we are 25 and single will likely not be the same when we are 40 with three children.
Fast Forward a Year...August 2015
Well, surprise suprise my beliefs have shifted again. Although I still believe God has given us a great deal of choice in our lives...I now accept that our souls are on this earth for a predetermined amount of time. The way we leave it is not set in stone, but the general time of departure is. I also believe our souls have been on this earth more than once and will continue to come back to learn more and more about God, His Children and how to become closer and closer to him. I've got a few older stories to post so I'll do that first and then I'll add more on this topic...happy reading!
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