Redemption

Life changes so quickly.  A single moment can alter the rest of a person's life.  And a year of those moments has brought our family from the brink of destruction to seeing dreams realized like we never imagined.  You see, a year ago today I discovered something that threw me immediately back into the nightmare we had experienced a few short months before.  It was something my husband had done that let me know he was not okay.  Again.  While I had already set the ball in motion to move from Hawaii, that moment was a game changer.  Peter would not be staying with the kids and I to help us make the move.  I had to get him out of Hawaii.

So I booked him a flight and called his dad.  Please be in L.A. in the morning to pick up your son.  Our friend Sully drove Peter and I to the airport.  I watched as, like a child who had never flown before, he stumbled through the check-in process.  I don't know what to do, Jen.  How do I do this? I stood as close to the security check-point as I could, coaching him through each step.  With a knot in my stomach, I watched him eventually walk away towards the airplane.  This is not good.  No, not good at all.  I just knew that he was not okay to travel alone.  What if he becomes horribly confused while in the air and does something drastic? What if he's arrested? And what if he gets lost when he has to change planes? After much wrestling back and forth in my head, I went to the ticket counter.  My husband isn't feeling well, so here's my number in case anyone needs to reach me.  No, he's not sick he's just...confused.

A flight attendant was sent to check on him.  Then the captain checked on him.  And he was deemed "unable to fly." Great.  Now what? With a victorious expression, my husband was led off of the airplane by a team of security agents.  You don't understand, my husband HAS to get off this island! I promise, he will be okay once he leaves Hawaii.  This has happened before.  Just please, please take him to California.  I'm desperate.  No go.  I had an hour on the drive home to think about how I would get through the night.  Already so sleep deprived, I just knew I couldn't husband-sit another night.  Thankfully, Jenny and Sully took him back to their 30-acre property for the night.  Knowing he probably wouldn't sleep, they decided to take turns keeping an eye on him.

The next day, Plan B:  Peter's dad drives through the night to L.A. from Mammoth, catches a plane (after missing a plane) to the Big Island, rents a car and drives an hour north to Kohala.  This is the second time he has made an emergency trip to the island to apprehend his son and escort him back to California. My hero.  However, before he can reach the island, Peter goes missing.  Two hours go by before we realize no one knows where Peter is.  Panic nearly overwhelms me.  How could he get lost walking the one mile from Jenny and Sully's house to home? There's nothing but dirt road and bushes between here and there! Unless he went the other direction...towards the cliffs...oh God, where are You??? And where is my husband??? {a sudden sensation of liquid peace and two simple words:  he's okay} It takes everything within me and then some to hang on to those two words for the next five hours.  I drive around in our Landcruiser on dirt roads with our three children in the back calling out, "Daaaaady! Where are you???" They have no clue how serious this is.  I can't believe this is happening.  I can't believe this is my life right now.  What if we don't find him before dark? What if we never find him?


After our friends and local law enforcement officers spend hours searching for him, Peter is found not far away and taken to a small local hospital down the road.  I race to drop off the kids at a friend's house on the corner and then race down the highway in hopes of finding my husband unharmed.  I arrive and run to him.  He seems good, much better, despite some large bumps on his head.  Knowing that his dad will arrive at any moment and they have a plane to catch, I ask him to leave with me.  Unable to keep him there against his will, the police officers and nurses let him walk out.  We go pick up the kids, we visit with our friends, we go home, Jenny makes us dinner and my father-in-law arrives in time for a quick meal before he turns around to make the return journey with his son.  Whew.  That was a close one.


Later I found out that my husband nearly took his life during those five hours he was missing.  That is a story for another day, but let's just say he suffered greatly during that time.  Thank God he really was okay.

I promised I would write about something good today, so here it is.  Tomorrow night at Redding's first Unearthed Arts Event we will be celebrating our friends and their completed works of both musical and visual art.  We will also be celebrating the release of Peter's first album, a timeline of songs about his life that he's written since the mid-90's.  And here's the really cool part.  Although it was completely unintentional, the very moment at which Peter is slotted to begin his portion of the event will mark the 1-year anniversary--down to the minute--that he was found after those excruciating five hours in Hawaii.  That's right.  The moment at which he nearly took his life last year is being marked by stepping into the realization of one of his biggest dreams this year.  I'm pretty sure that's called REDEMPTION!!! Here we are in the thick of remodeling our first home and seeing a long-awaited dream of Peter's be fulfilled.  And so we shake the dust off and step into a new season here in Redding, California.

So make sure you come on out and celebrate with us Friday, November 4th from 7-9 p.m. at Bethel Church's Twin View campus.  And as a thank you for reading my blog today, I'll let you in on a couple of secrets:  1) there will be free childcare provided for the evening and 2) we will be handing out free CDs to everyone there towards the end of the event!

Extra Grace Required

Prepare yourself for my first really raw blog entry.  I don't even know what I'm going to say, but I feel it coming on as I sit here snacking on a bowl of chocolate chips as a means of self-medicating. *kidding*  

This week is just TOUGH! And yet it's so very good.  I don't want to whine and complain because I have so much to be thankful for and plenty to be excited about.  What's happening this week is a convergence of major anniversary dates from our traumatic week in Hawaii last year, on top of our remodeling project, on top of Peter's album being launched this Friday at the Unearthed Arts Event, on top of having family in town, on top of my birthday being this weekend, on top of just trying to manage our normal everyday life as a homeschooling mom and a work-at-home dad.  If I learned anything at all last year, I learned that grace abounds where grace is required, and I need a whole lot of that grace right now.

Most of our friends and family know that my husband was confronted with his own personal hell on earth last year.  What it felt like to me, watching it and going through it with him and the kids, was something similar to being a main character in a real life horror film.  I hate horror films and the feelings associated with even watching a preview for one.  Take those feelings and add to that the realization that this is not just a movie, this is actually my life.  For real.  

Episode I of this horror film began on Peter's birthday, June 29th.  It was also the day our oldest son left home.  This resulted in us leaving the island for 2 1/2 months while we came back to California to sort things out.  He really did seem fine once we left Hawaii, so we returned to our beloved island home in Kohala believing that we would see the fruit of all the promises we went to Hawaii with.  Instead, Episode II began on November 2nd.  With my husband trapped in a seemingly inescapable whirlwind, I was left on my own to decide how to handle it.  We were too far away from family and our support network to get the help we needed at the time.  Our Kohala ohana, however, was everything that a family should be and more, making my decision to leave them even more difficult!   

Knowing that Hawaii wasn't going anywhere and we needed some serious help, I made the choice to move after consulting some trusted advisors.  My hope was that we'd really get to the bottom of what was happening, figure it out, fix it, and return to Kohala.  With five of my dear friends about to give birth to new babies, I was determined to make it back in a few months for a visit.  Sadly, almost a year has gone by and I haven't made it back.  And now here we are buying a house in Redding! 

It's all very confusing, but I am trusting that God knows what He's doing.  I fully believe that He made it possible for us to buy this home at just the right time.  But my heart is broken in two, half of which remained in Kohala and the other half is happy to be here.  My goodness, if I hadn't left Kohala I wouldn't be enjoying the new friendships (and some old) that I have here.  I wouldn't be living with my entire family within a few miles and I would't be anywhere NEAR a Trader Joe's.  :) I also wouldn't have access to all the homeschooling support we're enjoying here.  I can't think of a better place for us to plant in this season of our lives.

I realize that this may be a sad post, and that's probably because I do feel sad.  I'm reminding myself to focus on the good things that have come from our trials, to press into Grace--the kind that I know can carry me through even my worst nightmare.  So tomorrow I promise to write about some of those good things.