Shooting victim

Seasons of Change

/ Nicole Bartell / 2 Comments

(Trigger warning: mentions of suicide)

This morning, the thermometer said 67 degrees. That was a call I could not ignore. I made my coffee, threw on a long-sleeved tee (not quite cold enough for a sweater yet, unfortunately), and made my way outside to my Adirondack rocker. The squirrels seemed even busier than usual, scurrying in the trees. I imagined them frantically preparing for this sudden change of weather. The birds were singing, my chimes were ringing in the breeze, and I sat and rocked thinking about the change of seasons.

Change used to terrify me. In January of 2011, I was looking back at a year that had shifted my life drastically. I had lost a group of people I had considered “family” for over ten years, and everything I thought I knew and believed was torn down to the foundation of Jesus. I did not yet see that as the perfect place to be. I just felt insecure, unsteady, and lost. That January was the first year I asked Dad for a word to represent what was ahead. His answer: “Change.” I was not happy with that response. I didn’t like change to begin with, but I truly felt I had just gone through enough to last me a lifetime. I begged Him for another word, but “Change” was the one on repeat.

That year, my mom’s house burned down, causing her to move away from me for almost two years. Now I can see that I felt abandoned by her again but at the time, I just felt lost. I started counseling that summer, and a whole flood of emotions I had been burying for decades overwhelmed me, and my counselor moved away before I could even begin to process all I was feeling. Feeling abandoned by a second person, I shut down rather than pursue getting more help. I felt tossed around by life, and I made an agreement that I did NOT like change.

As I pondered all that this morning, I thought about all the seasons that have come since. That year, as difficult as it was, brought the very first steps I ever took toward recovery. I wouldn’t actually pursue “recovery” for another seven years, but I took that first step. Every journey begins with one step. The years after 2011 brought even more change:

  • My sister-in-law taking her life in 2013 led me to go on antidepressants because I didn’t want to do the same thing to my son.
  • A severe car accident in 2014 irrevocably changed my son’s life, health, and personality as well as the dynamics of our family.

  • I started Celebrate Recovery in 2018, thinking I was going to get help with a pornography addiction I had struggled with since I was twelve only to find it was just a coping mechanism to avoid all the pain I had suppressed for most of my life.
  • I found a new family at CR, one that taught me that I was enough just as I am, that I didn’t have to perform to be accepted or loved.
  • I lost my mom in 2021 from a massive stroke.
  • I participated in starting a CR in our home church only to have the internal pressure to perform perfectly, along with the cracks it revealed in my marriage, cause us to close a year and a half later. I felt like a failure.
  • My precious aunt, whom I had cared for after my mom died, died only three years later.
  • My only child moved out on his own, shifting my role again. Who was I supposed to be now?
  • Before I could even begin to process that question, I was shot, and my whole life turned upside down.

Seeing it all written down here, I realize why I was so resistant to change in the past. Change meant I was out of control. I felt insecure when things happened that I wasn’t expecting or situations that altered the trajectory of my life. I had spent my entire life, from a very young age, just trying to feel safe in a world that offered less and less of it. Then, when I was shot, I realized I will never be truly safe in this life. That was probably the most unsettling realization of all. If there is no safety, what is the point? I went through a month or so where I just really wanted to go home … to go be with Jesus, where I would be safe forever. But it wasn’t time for that, so what should I do now that I know there is no true safety in this world? I find it in the only place there is to find it. I find safety in knowing who I am and WHOSE I am because that can never be taken away.

Hindsight allows me to see that those drastic seasons of change in my life, as difficult and painful as they were, also brought greater and greater freedom, love, assurance, and hope I could not have imagined at the time. Now, I renounce that agreement I made about hating change and remind myself of what it has brought into my life. I can see the faithfulness of my Dad who promised that He would work everything out for my good in His time. I am recording these things in my Book of Remembrance so that I have it at my fingertips. I don’t have to struggle to remember when the next wind of change blows and I feel tossed. I can pick up my book and look through my personal “stones” of remembrance that remind me that Dad is the same as He has always been. He is unchanging. And He is the same God who was there for me in the past, is still with me in the present, and will be there in the future.

“The LORD is my light and my salvation – whom should I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life – whom should I dread? When evildoers came against me to devour my flesh, my foes and my enemies stumbled and fell. Though an army deploys against me, my heart will not be afraid; though a war breaks out against me, I will still be confident. I have asked one thing from the LORD; it is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, gazing on the beauty of the LORD and seeking Him in His temple. For He will conceal me in His shelter in the day of adversity; He will hide me under the cover of His tent; He will set me high on a rock. Then my head will be high above my enemies around me; I will offer sacrifices in His tent with shouts of joy. I will sing and make music to the LORD. LORD, hear my voice when I call; be gracious to me and answer me. My heart says this about You: “Seek His face.” LORD, I will seek Your face. Do not hide Your face from me; do not turn Your servant away in anger. You have been my helper; do not leave me or abandon me, God of my salvation. Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD cares for me. Because of my adversaries, show me Your way, LORD, and lead me on a level path. Do not give me over to the will of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing violence. I am certain that I will see the LORD’s goodness in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart be courageous. Wait for the LORD.” (Psalm 27 CSB)

A Life Turned Upside Down – Part Two

/ Nicole Bartell / Leave a comment

Coming home from the hospital was overwhelming. I was still in a whole lot of pain and needed precise medication dosing. I slipped pretty hard in my codependency recovery during this season. It was just so much easier to become passive and let others take care of me when I was in the hospital. When I got home, though, reality sank in. My illusion of safety in my life had been shattered, and I was terrified all the time. I didn’t like to leave my house at all, but even at home I faced the fear of someone coming in and attacking. I don’t think I had ever been this aware of my own mortality. One of my ways of dealing with my lack of control in my life was to try to hyper control everything and everyone else. I fanatically managed my own medication schedule and really wouldn’t allow my husband to help me, even though he was willing. I became very particular about how I wanted things. I only have vague memories from this period, but I am certain I was a bear to live with.

I turned 50 three weeks after I came home, and I was very disappointed that I couldn’t have the ’80s party I had envisioned. I was cleared to eat a soft (read: pureed) diet on my actual birthday and so my husband and friends planned a small get-together for me on the Saturday I had originally planned to hold my party. It was another example to me of Dad’s love through others, and I was struck again by how these people He had put in my life cared for me. And the blessing of actually being able to eat a little bit instead of taking nourishment through a PEG tube was amazing, even if it did have the consistency of baby food.

I found great comfort during that season just sitting on my front porch. I would sit there and listen to the breeze and the birds and pretend that Jesus was sitting in the chair next to me. And I would talk to Him. A lot. Out loud. I think I grew even closer to Him as I began to process my terror of life outside my haven, and the fact that I did not recognize the face I saw in the mirror. At the same time, Scriptures kept coming to mind about how I was supposed to rejoice in everything and give thanks. The one that really hammered home a lot was Hebrews 12:2 (CSB): “…for the joy that lay before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” I agonized over these verses because I knew I was not rejoicing or being thankful. One morning, I poured out my heart to Him because I could tell that the old fear of not measuring up and being rejected by Him for being disobedient was rising in me again. He showed me the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus crying out there before He went to the cross. And Dad asked me, “Do you think He was rejoicing then?” Having that visual and recognizing that Jesus also wrestled over doing Dad’s will renewed my hope. It showed me that it is okay to wrestle with Dad. He welcomes my wrestling. If I am wrestling with Him, then I am not giving up. My faith was strengthened and settled in my relationship and security with Him again.

Until March. I had been struggling with a persistent infection for a number of months. I was receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the hopes that it would heal the infection, but by late March it was clear that it had not accomplished what my surgeon had hoped, and I was looking at another surgery. It was also becoming apparent that my initial custom-made hardware had failed on one side so I was going to need either an internal replacement or an external one. I burst into tears when she told me. I already felt so uncomfortable in my own body. The idea of having an external frame outside my jaw to hold it in place was so devastating. I had also learned a bit more about the details of what happened the day I was shot, and I was suddenly hit with this internal question: was this allowance or causation? Did Dad ALLOW this to happen to me or was I CHOSEN for it? I was the only other person hit besides the original target, and I realized later, from reading the report and doing some deductive reasoning, that I was actually hit by the first bullet. This threw me into a tailspin. There were a lot of other people around that day. Why was I the one shot? I was back to wrestling.

Here is where I am very glad for recovery. I am glad that recovery has taught me that it is okay to be angry at Dad. He is big enough to take it. And He wants honesty most between us. No one else could answer this question for me, so I went to the only One who could. No answer. That hurt. I was hoping for an easy answer. Years ago, when processing through my sexual abuse as a child, it was so healing for me when He told me that He gave us free will, and He wouldn’t violate my abuser’s will any more than He would violate mine. But He did show me all the ways that He showed up and provided for me in that season, even though I didn’t know Him yet. I was asking the same here…tell me something that will make this easier to understand and accept.

Crickets.

It was really the first time since all this happened that Dad went silent. And here I was again, wrestling. I reached out to the therapist I had been seeing before all this and made an appointment. I was angry that this was my lot. I was angry that my face had been irrevocably changed. I was angry that all the work I had done to learn to love myself was for nothing because now I didn’t even feel like me anymore. I was furious. This wasn’t fair. And here I was, facing another major surgery when I had JUST gotten to the point where I could do normal things again like sleep on my right side and chew actual food. This would put me right back to the beginning again, and I was not happy. My therapist encouraged me to create a “Book of Remembrance”: a single place where I could record everything Dad has ever told me, taught me, provided for me, and all the ways He has shown up for me-a record of Dad’s faithfulness TO ME in the past so that I don’t have to go digging through years of journals to find it. I did NOT want to do this exercise. I wanted to be angry. I wanted Him to know I felt this was very unfair. And then memories started flooding in of other times I had felt similarly and Dad came through. Not on my schedule, but He always delivered. It didn’t always look like what I wanted or expected, but it always ended up being better.

The more I wrote, the more I realized it didn’t really matter which it was. I am following Jesus to the Celestial City, and whatever difficulties and hardships I bear along the way in this life are opportunities for me to see Him better, to know His love more deeply, and to be able to share with others what He has done in my life because the hardships and struggles have never been the end of the story. The end of the story is that I am His and He is mine and nothing and no one in this life can ever take that away. I say with Simon Peter, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and KNOW that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6: 68-69 CSB; emphasis mine). He is my Rock. My refuge. My Safety and Security. When everything else gives way, He is the One to whom I run and find shelter and rest.

Charlie was really happy I was home.
A little hint about what is to come.

A Life Turned Upside Down – Part One

/ Nicole Bartell / 1 Comment

One minute, I was sitting in the passenger seat of our blue Highlander chatting with the woman I have adopted as another mom on speaker phone on our way to our CR meeting; the next, there is a loud buzzing in my head, and I couldn’t move or speak. It only lasted for a moment before I heard my husband asking, “What happened?” Looking around, there was a glitter in the air, and I noticed my phone was no longer in my hand. “I think my phone exploded!” I replied, but blackness was beginning to creep in around the edges of my vision. I had experienced that before when my son and I were in a car accident in 2014, so I knew I was close to blacking out. I barely heard my husband mention that he thought we were shot at. He asked me if I was okay, and I said, “No…” before everything went black. I came to a little while later to my husband reassuring me, “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.” I’m not sure if he was telling me or himself. I could tell he was pulling up to the ER annex that was close by to where we had been. I felt…off. Something was definitely very wrong. “Help,” I moaned. “I need help.” My husband tried to reassure me, “I’m getting you some help.” It was only then I realized that he had his arm across my front, holding me up in my seat. He pulled up almost to the front door of the ER, beeping the horn frantically. A nearby nurse came running, and I heard the words that turned my life upside down. “I think my wife has been shot!”

It’s funny the things that stick when a body is in extreme physical trauma vacillating between agony and a drug-induced haze. The mind clings to the strangest things. My frustration that they cut off my brand new bra so they could collect it as evidence. Those things aren’t cheap!!! The devastation felt when my jaw was wired shut, and I was unable to speak for two weeks. I am incredibly verbal; that was beyond difficult, especially when trying to communicate when I was in distress. The absolute horror the first time I was able to look at my face in the mirror and see how disfigured I was. The joy that the beauty of flowers brings to a sterile environment. Delight in visits from my loved ones and having clean hair once a week. The three weeks I spent in the hospital were some of the longest of my life. But not being able to talk gave me an awful lot of time to think.

I thought about how things could have gone so differently. If that bullet had hit me one inch any other direction, I would be dead. Or worse, a vegetable. My mom always told me that God had a plan for my life because I had survived too many things that should have killed me. I chalked it up to her being my mom and just a bit biased. When my son was born, and Dad (what I call God) assured me He had plans for him, I thought that was it. He was why I had survived, to bring this special human being that I wasn’t supposed to be able to have into the world. Now, my son is an adult. He had moved out on his own the week before all this happened. For the first time, I gave credence to my mom’s words. Maybe Dad DOES have something for me to do. I remember thinking that I wanted to have a heart like Job who could say, “Should (I) accept only good from God and not adversity?” (Job 2:10 CSB). I chose then to be thankful, grateful that Dad had spared my life and allowed me to live.

During the three weeks I was in the hospital, I spent two in ICU. I could only communicate through text or writing on a dry erase pad a friend supplied. I went through seven surgeries to clean out the destruction and then place a plate to fix my broken jaw. I couldn’t eat so I was put on a PEG tube. I breathed through a tracheostomy. I had horrible pain that was only alleviated by the strongest of medication. I had fractures in my upper two cervical vertebrae which, thankfully, weren’t severe and didn’t need intervention, but I had no idea from which the trouble that would come later. And yet, I had joy I hadn’t had since I first met Jesus. I received music therapy that I hummed along with until my jaw plate went in, and I could sing again. I had my core group of friends who came to the hospital every night to cheer me up and keep me company and give my husband and son a break. I had my first sponsor, that friend I had adopted as another mom, staying with me every night communicating for me and taking care of me. I had animal therapy and visits from church family, and as bad as my situation was, I could see Dad’s hand at work. He gave me the best Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon in the world as far as I’m concerned. So many doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists who took amazing care of me and loved on me and cheered me on. A dear friend came and worshipped with me and lifted my spirits, and we were CHURCH in that room! My niece came and washed and braided my hair every few days, even though she was dealing with her own struggles. And I wouldn’t realize until months later, but for the first time, I didn’t feel alone. Even going through pain and trauma and so much difficulty, I wasn’t alone. Not only was I surrounded by people who loved on me, but I felt Dad closer than I ever had before.

That didn’t mean I didn’t have some struggles with the emotions of my situation…but that’s another story.