It’s pretty obvious our story hasn’t been kept private. From day one, we’ve shared the intimate details of Kamri’s medical progress and hurdles, what it felt like the days and weeks and months after she died, and what living here without her has looked like for us in the everyday, but also in the bigger milestones and moments. Most of that sharing, though, has been through written word. Actually, nearly all of it.
Last winter, I spoke at a mom’s group Christmas party and part of my talk included some of the challenges that come up when the holiday season meets up with grief. The original plan for that group was to share earlier in the year a talk solely on grief and child loss. I had the outline all drawn up and it was on the calendar. Then my gallbladder revolted, I ended up in the hospital for six days, and we had to switch my date to December, which also happened to be the Christmas party. It felt a bit unnatural to try and merge a party setting with a message about child loss, so we switched gears and I focused more on the holiday season and how to navigate it when there are other emotions involved besides just joy.
SO, the bulk of our story remained in writing… until this past Monday.
We were asked by a dear friend to come on as a guest on her podcast, Wife Me Up. I know… the title is awesome. 🙂 And what she is bringing to the table in terms of Christ-centered, real-life discussion is so good. She’s on her third season now and is taking a deep dive into a topic that the Lord has called her to and that the world needs to be talking about. Her third season is called “Unstuck: Stories of Hope”, where she’s exploring a wide spectrum of stories where people were “stuck” in a season of life and how they got themselves “unstuck”. My favorite line of her introduction and explanation of the theme is “let’s unstick what’s not meant to stick”.
So when Megan asked if we would be up for coming on the show to talk about what it was like to be “stuck” in a season of grief and how we managed the slow forward motion to “unstuck”, we (a little nervously) said yes. Logistically (remember, we have two little buddies in the mix around here), it worked out that only I went up to record this time, but as always, it was a full-family effort. I wanted to be honest, though, about what has happened since then.
I am sitting here typing this on Wednesday, October 6th and the podcast was recorded on Monday, October 4th. It is set to come out tomorrow, Thursday, October 7th. Honestly? I am and have been a ball of so many emotions since we did it… NERVOUS being front and center. I was nervous going in. Not necessarily to speak, as I’ve done a good bit of public speaking over the years, but this would be the very first time I would put voice to our story for a larger audience to hear.
We’re used to talking about Kamri, her life, and our grief. We do it all of the time with friends, one-on-one or in smaller group settings, but to a bigger audience? Never. It’s one thing to write about it, I’m used to doing that. It’s become one of the ways I process best, kind of like I’m doing right now. With writing, though, I can backspace and re-word and take out completely and add later as I process more. Even after a post is published, I can go back and make changes and then click “Update”. It’s not the same with speaking it… once you say it, it’s out there. For better or worse, eloquent or not, even right or wrong, it’s out there.
I think I’ve been nervous because above all, I just wanted to represent Kamri, Mitch, our family’s journey, and most of all, God, well. That’s it. I wasn’t worried about mixing up words or stuttering or anything like that (that’s going to happen, just got to chuckle and roll with it). I just wanted to represent well what matters most to me in the world. Kamri’s is a story that is so close to my soul, that it would physically make me sick if things went south.
AS PARENTS OF A CHILD WHO IS NOT HERE, THERE ARE SO FEW OPPORTUNITIES TO FEEL LIKE WE ARE ACTUALLY STILL ABLE TO DO THE TANGIBLE THINGS PARENTS DO FOR THEIR CHILDREN.
When those chances come up, to not show up for her well would feel soul crushing.
I know this seems like maybe some unrealistic expectations to set up, but this is just what was weighing on my mind going into it. I also wanted to show up well for God. He has been so faithful to us, to not represent Him well would feel like just as much of a failure. I also knew that in the end, it’s really not about me and my capacity to share, it’s not about Mitch, it’s not even about Kam or her story. God is bigger and way more important than any of those things. It’s His story of love for His people that is center stage and my ability or inability to speak on behalf of that is inconsequential. All of these thoughts were swirling around and around in my head… and then it was go time.
Megan and I had a conversation that only two friends who have weathered some life together can have… we got in it. The deep, sorrowful, spaces where I shared out loud what it was like in some of the most intimate moments of Kamri’s life and death. The light-hearted, funny-looking-back-now moments that you just have to smile and laugh at. The ones where Mitch and I threw all of the messy emotions at God and told Him to freakin’ FIX THIS. The things we have learned about grief and would pass onto someone who may be walking a similar path of any type of loss. We went to all of those places and I felt God meet us there.
And yet. Yet, as I drove the two hour drive home, darkness seeped in. Doubt and insecurity slowly consumed me. I started to panic… I was thinking about all of the things I could remember that I said, all of the things I could remember that I should have said and didn’t. My mind started racing and picking apart all of what I did say and Satan took his opportunity to get his foot in the door and pry it wide open.
Did I say too much? Did I go into too much detail? Did I talk for too long about that? I forgot to share what her actual diagnosis ended up being. I forgot to say the piece Mitch shared with me about his own perspective. I never shared what grief today looks like. Did I paint the picture incorrectly that once you do the hard work up front, the grief goes away? When I talked about honest emotions toward God, did I even say that I still trust Him? Did I say enough how GOOD God was through the whole thing? Did I give more glory to Him or to the pain? I didn’t do this well. I did not show up for them like I should have. I let them all down… every single one of them.
I spiraled. This is something I don’t usually do… I’ve never been afraid to speak and never been that in my head about it. But this time, I spiraled. When I got home, we put the boys to bed, and it just got worse and worse. I was a mess and at one point, in complete hysterics. I felt such burden, such darkness, such guilt.
And then Mitch realized what was happening. Right then, he called Satan out and told him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to GET OUT. He started praying, that God would protect both of us from what was clearly a spiritual attack of the enemy. For those of you who are unsure of what we mean by this… we believe that, as the Bible says, “our fight is not against flesh and blood… but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). This essentially means that there is a spiritual war raging that we cannot see, but are 1000% in the middle of. Now, we KNOW that God has already won (Jesus neutralized sin and defeated death by dying on the cross and coming BACK TO LIFE three days later), but Satan is still going to try and tear every single person, every single soul away from the Lord that he can, and that’s what God’s heavenly army is fighting against. So when we talk about “spiritual warfare”, that’s what we’re talking about.
I believe that Satan is especially active in two scenarios: when we are weak or vulnerable and/or when we are a threat to him. We saw this ALL THE TIME in our month of fighting for Kamri’s life at CHOP. It was almost like clockwork. We’d be in an especially hard moment… or have a small win in her medical updates… or be just about to make a bold statement for the Lord and Satan was right there, trying to tear us down. In fact, as I was cleaning up some things on the blog, I came across this excerpt from the daily updates we were sending at the time:
1/14/20, 7:00pm
We are knee deep in the biggest spiritual battle we’ve ever faced. With a situation like this, not only is every day different, but every hour is too. God is clearly at work here. But Satan is too. It has been amazing to see the battle grounds and the ways that both are working. Mitch and I have noticed that ANYTIME we catch a moment of God’s peace, strength, and hope, Satan has something up his sleeve to bring us down and confuse us with lies… and it’s incredible how quick he is to pounce.
I don’t think it was an accident that this came across my plate. Actually, I know it wasn’t. I had been barely even skimming over those updates, but for some reason, happened to stop and read this one. Reading this hit me so hard because it snapped what’s been happening over the last few days into instant clarity. I mean, AS SOON as I got in the car to come home from Megan’s house, I could feel the dark thoughts of “what have you done? that was all wrong. you’ve let Him down.” seeping in. Later that night, I broke down sobbing to Mitch with all of the things I felt like I had said wrong or didn’t say enough of, and that’s when he realized the spiritual attack I was under. As soon as he prayed, my heart lightened and peace came over me and I was eventually able to fall asleep. The next day, we talked about it and Mitch shared that as soon as I fell asleep, he started to feel that same sense of darkness in his own mind and could hear lies that Satan was trying to tell him. Satan is vile. His intentions have always been and will always be to steal, kill, and destroy (ref. John 10:10).
It is no different now than it was five years ago, fighting daily for Kamri’s life, while also declaring the power and goodness of God. When we are weak or vulnerable or opening back up wounds, we are susceptible. When we speak out about the mighty name of the Lord, the Savior of the world, we are susceptible. The same is true for you and your own life. Think about it, look for it, and speak it. There is power in calling it what it is. Satan hates that; he’d rather operate in subtle, sneaky, backdoor ways until he’s firmly wedged into your mind and heart. Don’t let him do that. You call him right out and tell him to GET THE @#*% OUT. In the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ. (I don’t think God is generally a fan of swearing, but also pretty sure that all gloves come off when it comes to rebuking the devil…)
Whew. I know that’s a lot and this is a heavy (and can be scary) thing to put out into the world. It may be polarizing, but we have learned that there is just no time for beating around the bush. This is what’s going on. We are telling our story (this time on a podcast), I have been a ball of nerves about it, but God is victorious. It doesn’t matter what I said or didn’t say. His love for His people will win every single time. Praise the Lord, He really and truly does not need us to save the world. It’s already done. It’s just our job to show up to the best of our ability when He calls us to. So we said yes.
We said yes to sharing out loud, with our own voices, about Kamri’s story, our grief journey, and what it has looked like for us to become “Unstuck”. Now, if you would pray for us (and Megan) as the episode airs tomorrow, we would very much appreciate it. It’s a very vulnerable spot to be, putting a lot of who you are out for people to consume. Pray that our hearts would be protected, that we’d only be focused on the truth of Christ, and that, most of all, God would be glorified.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your ongoing support… our sweet KamFam. You have been here through all of the seasons so far and it only felt right to share with you where this journey has taken us in this particular one. As soon as the episode airs, we will share the link with you over on our Instagram (@mitchandleslie) and come back and update this post with the link here too.