Through the Valley of Shadow, Part 2 of 4

Taylor Pryor

While Doug Pryor remained in Portage la Prairie for work, his wife Darseen was grateful she’d retired from her nursing job only a year earlier. She’d also given up her position on the board of the Portage Pregnancy Support Centre, not knowing what might be coming but sensing God leading her to hand over that position. As their daughter Taylor’s mental health continued to digress and need constant vigilance, Darseen knew she could never have done it if she still had those other demands on her time and energy.

Despite all the efforts on their daughter’s behalf, despite wonderful community support, Taylor’s suicide attempts continued to increase. Over the months that followed, she attempted suicide at least twenty-two times. She saw at least thirteen psychiatrists and five other medical doctors. In one instance, seventy hours passed while health professionals bounced her between three different facilities before she was finally admitted. Everywhere the Pryors turned, they received conflicting messages. One doctor would say she needed the psychotherapy treatment program available at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre. Another would decide she wasn’t well enough to go. One would prescribe medication; another would take her off that and give her something else. Some staff would communicate freely while others would state that Taylor was an adult and privacy rules prevented them from sharing the information with Doug and Darseen.

Waiting in noisy, chaotic ERs where the staff seemed focused on settling Taylor down and sending her home did not work. Many times, they would release her and within twenty-four hours she would be back in the hospital after attempting suicide. With a choked voice, Doug tried to describe the pain of standing helplessly by while several professionals tackled his daughter and held her down so they could shoot a sedative into her.

In one incident, Taylor’s sister Raela found her on a bridge near St. Boniface hospital after Taylor left the ER. Raela knew where to look because of something Taylor had said while seeing the bridge from a hospital window. Sure enough, when Raela arrived, Taylor was preparing to jump into the Red River below. A stranger in a bright orange shirt stopped to help. Taylor did not resist but allowed the young man and Raela to escort her back to the hospital where her parents waited.

In the chaos, the young man simply disappeared, and they never learned his name. Doug is convinced he was an angel sent from God, wearing Taylor’s favorite color.

In August of 2019, a passerby found Taylor lying in the middle of the road on William Avenue after she was discharged from the Crisis Response Centre. Police picked her up and took her to the Health Sciences Centre ER.

Doug and Darseen managed to secure an appointment with a concussion specialist in Calgary, a full day’s drive from home. While they were there, another suicide attempt caused Taylor to miss the appointment. They returned home in defeat. The constant vigilance was taking a deep toll, despite feeling tremendous support from their church community. Doug served on his church board at the time, and sometimes the pastor would stop the board business so they could pray for Taylor. There were nights when family and friends were out searching for Taylor in Winnipeg while board members prayed back in Portage. They texted Doug about what God was showing them. In one instance, a praying board member received a vision of Taylor sitting on a park bench. From that description, the family was able to find her.

They continued trying to get Taylor into the treatment center in Selkirk, typically a six-month wait. With the help of Manitoba Legislative Member Dr. Jon Gerrard, Taylor’s name was moved up the list, reducing her wait to two months. While they waited, her family grew hopeful as they were invited to join a support group for families of other Selkirk patients already in care.

On October 16, 2019, another attempt sent Taylor to the hospital where she was seen by psychiatry and kept overnight. Although she asked to stay, she was discharged the next day.

She walked out, then began to run. Her mother tried to follow in her car but lost sight of Taylor after she scaled a fence along a busy highway and disappeared into a wooded area at the University of Manitoba. It was the last time Darseen saw her daughter alive. She was four days away from being admitted to the Selkirk treatment center.

Continued next week.

A Journey of Infertility and Faith, Part 1 of 4

As we look ahead to Father’s Day, I’m honored to introduce you to a couple who have courageously shared their powerful story with me so that I might pass it along to my readers. To protect their privacy, I’ve changed their names, but I know you’ll be blessed by their story. May you find hope and encouragement, whatever your unanswered prayers might be.

Like most young couples engaged to be married, Eli and Hannah Abrahams discussed the idea of having children. Neither felt a huge push to have kids right away, and there was some talk about whether becoming parents was something they truly wanted. They agreed they didn’t want to have kids simply because everyone else was. Though they loved children, they wanted to become parents at a time when they could be intentionally present in their lives, attend their events, and participate in their interests. Hannah wanted to build a career before having kids. As a child, Eli had parents in the restaurant industry with its crazy hours and constant hold on Mom and Dad’s time. Now he, too, found himself in the restaurant industry.

The timing of their decision to start trying for kids was triggered by Eli’s exit from the restaurant and his transition into ministry. When he was invited to join the staff at their church, Eli and Hannah sensed it was a call from God. They were in their early thirties and the timing felt right to start having children as well.

“When we hadn’t gotten pregnant after a few months,” Hannah says, “We started talking with our doctors. We did all the tests. Everything looked good. No reason for us not to become pregnant. Probably just the stress of changing careers. Keep trying. It’ll come.

“We tried hard to be chill about it. That worked sometimes but mostly it didn’t. We found that we needed to grieve the easy fertility that our family and friends had that we had assumed would be our story too. I remember breaking down in heartbroken sobs at our church’s Thanksgiving Banquet as I dealt with the fear, grief, and anger of this transition from not-a-mom-yet to possibly-never-a-mom. The grief was real.”

For both Eli and Hannah, the grief still is real. They are just less surprised when it comes around now. They’ve never received an answer for their infertility, only possible guesses. The closest any doctor has come to explaining was the one gynecologist who admitted that approximately thirty percent of people who seek help with infertility are a mystery with no apparent cause. For thirteen years, Eli and Hannah have sought help, found a little, and kept going, without children in their home. Although a fibroid appeared to block one of Hannah’s fallopian tubes, her doctor assured her it wouldn’t affect a pregnancy.

Finally, in July of 2020, they received a positive pregnancy test.

Five days after the positive test, their doctor told them they must abort the pregnancy. The fibroid had indeed affected things, by causing the embryo to implant outside Hannah’s uterus. She could either have the abortion or risk losing her entire reproductive system or even her life. Either way, the embryo would not survive.

We’ll continue the Abrahams’ story with Part 2 next week.

Ain't Nothin' God Can't Use

As I sit at my desk wondering what to write for this first blog post of another new year, a glimpse out my office window speaks to my heart. It’s been a cold, blustery day. The snow has stopped falling, the wind has settled down, the sun is setting. The cloud cover has broken in the west just enough to tease me with a glimmer of sky the color of ripe, freshly sliced cantaloupe. The crisp whiteness on the evergreens and the sparkly blue balls hanging inside my window breathe beauty into winter’s harsh reality.

People find much to feel angry about. Frustrated about. Fearful, sad, and disappointed about. Persistent and fast-spreading variants of Covid-19 have cancelled or postponed holiday celebrations. Family members missed out due to close contacts or positive test results or merely to obey the gathering rules. We’ve had to hold loosely every hope and dream, knowing our plans will change frequently, and often at the last minute.

We’re tired. This has dragged on long enough, we say. Is this how life is going to be from now on? Will it never end?

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but I’m not sure anyone believes that anymore. This pandemic has killed many, literally and figuratively. Besides actual physical death from the virus, it has brought death in other forms. Suicide is rampant. Domestic violence is at an all-time high. Marriages are ending. Factions have formed. Trust has dissolved. Dreams and hopes are dying all around us. Are we stronger?

For those of us who truly believe God could end this with one word, the pandemic might create a crisis of faith. He could end it, yet he does not. We wonder why. Doesn’t he love us? It’s easy to conclude God might be all-powerful, or he might be loving, but he surely cannot be both.

I still choose to believe he is both. Though I have no idea why he allows this to continue, I trust him enough to believe he has his reasons. So far, none of our names are on the need-to-know list. My daily prayer these days is, “God, if we must go through this anyway—and apparently, we do—please don’t let us waste it. Don’t let me waste it. Use the difficulty to make me stronger. Kinder. More compassionate and understanding. Wiser. Braver. Whatever you want, however I need to change, do that. In me. Through this.”

Author Mary Jane Holt says, “Ain’t nothin’ God can’t use to get folks thinking about him and eventually seeking to know him.” I love that.

Ain’t nothin’ God can’t use to teach and to reach us.

Ain’t nothin’ God can’t use to restore the broken.

Ain’t nothin’ God can’t use to improve our perspective.

Ain’t nothin’ God can’t use to bring hope to the hopeless.

Ain’t nothin’ God can’t use to make us more like himself. To make us love each other better. To make us more helpful and less judgmental. More patient, less demanding. More courageous, less fearful. More humble, less entitled. More peaceful, less anxious.

That sliver of rosy sky in the west tells me the sun is still shining even if I cannot see it. It will make itself brilliantly evident once again—if not tomorrow, the next day. Its Creator will do the same, in his perfect time.

He won’t force transformation upon us, but he’ll help us change when we seek his help. When we open ourselves to growth. After nearly two years of this, you’ve already proven you can do hard things. You’re going through this anyway, like it or not. Wouldn’t it be a shame to waste it?

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

Twenty years, ancient history?

Does it shock you to realize some of the voters in this month’s election weren’t even born when the events of September 11, 2001, took place? In the twenty years since, many books about that day have been written and read, documentaries made and watched. The ramifications continue—everything from heightened security at airports to which we’ve all grown accustomed, to the ongoing horrifying news out of the middle east—to which I hope we never grow accustomed.

Everyone over thirty remembers where they were. I was driving to my job at Portage (now Prairie) Alliance Church, my 14-year-old son—in grade nine at Westpark School—beside me.

The radio reported an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York City. I envisioned a small private plane with engine trouble. How unfortunate.

Then they said a second plane had hit the same place and I thought, “What? That can’t be right. The odds are impossible. They must be mistaken.”

I forgot all about it.

Until an hour or two later when one of our pastors interrupted the meeting I was in. “Have you guys been hearing what’s going on?”

We spent the remainder of the day glued to the television. As more stories emerged, we wondered when it would stop. I had a son in the United States and a daughter in Switzerland. Would I ever see them again? Was this how the world would end?

I can’t help thinking people asked the same question during World War II, especially when the atomic bombs dropped.

They probably asked it during the Spanish Flu pandemic, too.

And during the “war to end all wars” before that.

And in March of 2020 when news reports made it seem we’d all be wiped out by a virus.

It’s a question asked repeatedly throughout history. Yet here we still are. Fighting the same battles. Wondering how bad things will get. How long can we hold out? How will it all end?

I recently finished a great book by Canadian novelist Genevieve Graham called Letters Over the Sea. Set in Toronto from 1933-46, the main character is a girl whose four brothers and a romantic interest are all fighting in the war. By the end, one brother has died, one has lost a leg, one suffers severe facial disfigurement and nervous ticks, and one exhibits what we’d now call severe PTSD. The romantic interest is missing, presumed dead.

The author describes in detail Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s announcement on VE day and the celebrations in the streets, pubs, and homes. People banging pots and pans. Church bells ringing. As I read the scene, tears ran down my cheeks, imagining what emotions would surface after five years of constant strain. Knowing that, though the war was over, its fallout would continue.

My tears had less to do with the book’s characters or even the real-life people they represented, and more to do with my own future. Imagine every worry, heartache, pain, and conflict gone for good on the day God makes that happen. Oh, the utter relief.

Author Sarah Young says, “The truth is, the world has been at war ever since Adam and Eve first sinned. With the threat of terrorism…people are feeling that no place is really safe. In one sense, this is true. However, for Christian believers, there is no place that is actually unsafe.”

Nothing can happen to you except what God allows. In Christ, we are always safe.

So much more than a ticker-tape parade is coming. No terrorist, no disease, no vaccine, no accident, no war holds the power to rob you of your glorious inheritance. “…he has given us new birth…into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you…” (I Peter 1:3-4)

In Defense of 2020

People treat this year as though it’s the black sheep of the family. The kid on the playground who stinks so bad nobody wants to go near him. A laughingstock. If you spend any time on social media, you’ve seen the variety of memes dedicated to, “If 2020 were a …”

If it were a playground slide, it would be a twelve-foot long vegetable grater in the painful direction.

If 2020 were a beverage, it would be a colonoscopy prep.

If 2020 were a bag of chips, they’d be orange juice and toothpaste flavored.

A hilarious video shows a dozen guys trying to roll out a rain delay tarp over a ball diamond in a deluge. The tarp seems to be folding in on itself, forcing them to roll it all up and try again. It’s labelled, “If 2020 were a tarp.”

 

Someone asked, “At what point can we just start using 2020 as a swear word?” followed by examples of how that might work. “Well, that’s a load of 2020,” or “What the 2020 is that?”

We need to laugh, don’t we? Especially if the only alternative is tears. But I detect an underlying assumption that 2020 is unique. We gleefully anticipate 2021, believing it will somehow, magically, be better.

I don’t want to be a gloomy Gus, but what if it’s not? A few months ago, I wrote about the wonderful reunion we’d enjoy when church services could resume. I imagined the hugging and the laughing. Now that we’re resuming, it’s nothing like I predicted, and we don’t know how long it will be until we’re free to hug or to sing our hearts out without masks—if ever.

Who knows what fallout effects of this year’s tragedies will continue to plague us for decades? Who’s to say another virus won’t surface on the heels of this one, as bad or worse? What if, in 2025, you find yourself longing for the good old days of 2020?

This year is getting a bad rap and bullying it isn’t helping. Good things have happened, too. Babies have been born. Couples have bravely taken the plunge and gotten married this year despite restrictions. At least it will always be easy to calculate their age or anniversary year.

Personally, 2020 is the year I released my first self-published book. It’s also the year I signed a contract on my fourth novel, to be released in 2021. I’m pumped about seeing this book distributed, and why wouldn’t I be? I’m a 61-year-old with a lung condition living through a pandemic. Those factors only increase the sense of urgency.

And when forced to wait for something, you can know God is in the waiting time with you. A song I love says, “We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we know Who holds tomorrow. Knowing this, we’ll live above the world and all its sorrow.”

The nightly news is grim. It can easily fill our hearts with fear and anxiety. What if instead, you used the news as a daily reminder that—whatever’s going on around you—you are here today, in this moment. You don’t need to wait a minute to do what God put you here to do. If you’re not sure what that is, Philippians 4:4-9 is a great place to begin.

Who knows? 2020 could turn out to be your best year ever.