Remembering | All is Well

The Most Difficult, Most Beautiful, Grief-filled and Joyful Decade

January 1, 2020 By Shelly Durkee

December 31st, 2009

We were on the precipice of a new decade.

However, I hardly noticed it.

The last six months of 2009 were a whirlwind: Within days of returning from a mission trip to Kenya with my oldest girl, our world was shattered by the arrest of my ex-husband, for evil crimes of abuse. The media were camped out in our church parking lot (which was also the parking lot to the parsonage, where we lived.) I told the kids to fill up two suitcases with summer clothes and just the toys that were most dear to them, and then I drove them to the airport to send them to their grandparent’s home in Hawaii, to remove them as far as possible from the chaos as I tried to figure out what to do. I went into hiding. I turned 40. I gave most of our belongings to Goodwill and to a fundraiser yard sale for a friend, because I knew we would have to travel light for awhile. My children enrolled in school in Hawaii, under a homeless act law – because they fit that profile according to Hawaii’s law. I joined them out in Hawaii, in time to take my youngest to a “safe house” to be questioned by detectives, to determine if she, too, was a victim.

After a month or so, I realized I could not afford to stay in Hawaii – we had no money, no job, no insurance, no home, and few belongings. We returned to Virginia, and our beautiful church allowed us to move back into the parsonage, and helped us to refurnish it with beds and couches and dishes and lamps. The Presbyterian minister found someone in his congregation to help me pull my resume together. He also traded his mother’s car, for my ex-husband’s car, so that the kids would not have to use it to learn how to drive. He connected us to a counselor, who became a lifeline. Friends bought me some clothes for interviews, and shared job openings with me.

I had absolutely no idea how I was going to raise these four hurting children, on my own. I worked as a substitute teacher by day, and retail by night.

The end of 2009, was a blur. A grief-soaked, terrifying, how-are-we-going-to-survive-and-why-would-God-allow-this-and-will-we-ever-know-joy-again end to the decade.

We were crushed. Broken. Despairing. I couldn’t even fathom how we would survive the next day, let alone the next ten years.

December 31, 2019

A day is just a day. A year is just a year and a decade is just a decade. Is tomorrow, really any different from today? Remember when we thought the world would end, during Y2K, yet when we work up on January 1st, everything was…normal? The world’s economy hadn’t collapsed, no one needed their doomsday provisions they had stored up in their basement. The sun rose, we said “Happy New Year” and life kept marching on.

Yet, tonight, I feel myself pulled towards some reflection over the last ten years. I am compelled to stop, for just a moment, and breathe a prayer of gratitude.

The decade started off in dark anguish and hopelessness. I wasn’t at all certain that I….that my crew and I….would make it through the first few years of the decade.

How grateful I am tonight, that I was so very wrong.

But I am only wrong, because God’s grace and mercy and faithfulness are sure.

The lyrics of the second stanza of the hymn “Come Thou Fount” reference raising an “Ebenezer” – weird language to our ears, for sure. It points back to a passage in 1 Samuel, when the prophet Samuel set up a stone after God destroyed the Philistines and Israel won a major battle. The Israelites, when seeing the stone, were to remember that “Thus far, the Lord has helped us.”

It is a bit odd – we aren’t much in the habit of naming stones here in 2020 – but the purpose was to remind the people of what God had done.

A milestone.
A signpost.
A memorial.

I can’t think of a better way to close out this awful, beautiful decade, than placing my own, virtual stone in the ground, and taking time to remember how God has “helped us thus far” – because His grace and mercy have been sweeter than anything I could have imagined.

A Decade Review – What God Has Done

Single parenting was so very hard; and I failed my kids so many times. But here we are, 10 years later – and I am so proud of what my crew has accomplished, and who they are. They endured so much, yet in those difficulties, have developed a resiliency and appreciation that they might not have gained otherwise. They are closer to and enjoy each other more than any other sibling groups that I know – because, they had to learn to depend deeply upon each other. They are launching out into the world and cheering each other on as they do so. My oldest daughter is newly married. My oldest son is in the Navy, serving our country while stationed in Japan. My youngest son is in college, pursuing an engineering degree while also working hard at his job. And my youngest is at The College at Southeastern Seminary, studying music. All four work hard in their jobs and studies. All four love fiercely and protectively. All four treasure life and adore each other.

Out of the pain of our experience, I have had the honor and privilege to walk beside others who have found themselves in similar nightmares – precious, hurting victims of abuse. Wives of husbands accused and subsequently found guilty. Parents and grandparents struggling to care for their victimized children. Churches blindsided by similar evils that have seeped into what should be protective walls. Other churches, looking to put safeguards in place, to help prevent such awfulness. At times, these relationships have been difficult and draining – but every single contact and request for help is dear to me, because the help I was given by my church family and this community that I live in is dear to me. It is my way to repay the care given to my family and I, in our desperate need.

I’ve had the opportunity to write throughout the past 10 years – a children’s book, an article for Leadership Journal (a publication by parent company Christianity today), an article for ERLC, an article for a professional journal in the UK, and various other opportunities for different websites. Writing is how I process the world; and to share my words with others has been both terrifying and life-giving.

For several years during this past decade, we lived in our dear little house provided for us by Seaford Baptist Church (our church family) and Zion United Methodist Church. (You can read more about our little home here: Our Dwelling Place). In that home, we circled the wagons and our hearts began to heal – I will always be grateful for those four walls.

Seven years ago, I took a job that changed all of our lives. It allowed me to quit working 2 and 3 jobs to survive. It was a work-from-home position, which meant I was no longer away from the kids morning, afternoon and evening, trying to make enough money to pay our bills. I was finally able to monitor things like homework and what was for dinner – everyone’s grades improved immediately, and ramen was no longer the staple meal. I was able to use my degree and experience in life, to help build a successful team while also grow developing a career.

And, through my new job, five years ago, I met Ken.

Ken, my “Dark Shadow”, who has loved me with a selfless love that I had never known before. He cherishes me. We will have been married for two years, in February. Everyday with him, is a joy. He makes me laugh, he spoils me rotten, he provides for me and for our family. He invests in my (and now, really, our) kids’ lives. He tells me that I am beautiful, and that he wants to grow old with me. He makes me want the years to slow down, because I want to experience so much of life with him – traveling the world and teaming up on projects and enjoying adventures and goofiness and ministry and grandparenting and…….all of it.

January 1, 2020

In just a few hours, this incredibly beautiful, unbelievably difficult, terrifying, , grief and joy filled decade will come to a close. Some of you may be staring at the year(s) ahead, with despair and fear, shrouded in a fresh cloak of grief. Others of you may be looking toward the days ahead with excitement and anticipation.

Yet in reality, we don’t know what the next ten years holds. None of us do. You don’t. I don’t. Tomorrow, any one of us could find our worlds shattered. Or, we could experience joy beyond our wildest imaginations. We simply do not know.

What we do know, though, is that God is good. He is sovereign, in the midst of the joys, the griefs, and all of the the mundane, exhausting, peaceful, exhilarating, and terrifying moments.

And, He is faithful.

The hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” has become very important to me, over the last decade. And, at midnight tonight (if I am still awake – I did turn 50 this year, you know…staying up to midnight is getting harder and harder!), I fully intend to sing these words quietly in my soul:

Great is Thy faithfulness
O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee
Thou changest not
Thy compassions they fail not
As Thou hast been
Thou forever will be

Pardon for sin
And a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer
And to guide
Strength for today
and bright hope for tomorrow
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside

Great is Thy faithfulness
Great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
And all I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness
Lord unto me

Where We Were…

September 12, 2016 By Shelly Durkee

15 years ago, today.

You know, we often talk about this, when the 11th of September rolls around.

We talk about where we were, when we heard the news. When we watched the second plane hit. When we saw the towers fall.

We also talk about how that moment is seared into our minds. How the sheer magnitude of those moments “imprinted” where we were, at that moment.

I was at a grocery store. Trying to save money by using double coupons. I left the dozen or so items I had chosen in my cart and went home.

Grocery shopping, in that moment, was trivial. Getting home to my crew was all-consuming.

If you are old enough to remember, you know where you were, on 11-September-2001.

When something traumatic, or devastating, or even when something overwhelmingly joyful happens, we tend to remember the moment with an uncanny clarity. We remember where we were at, the moment we received the news. We remember things that otherwise we would forget–for example, ask any New Yorker who was in Lower Manhattan on that Tuesday. They will probably tell you that the sky was a brilliant blue. Why? Because it was. And because that image is seared in their memory.

Why is this?

I’m sure there are all sorts of biological and psychological reasons why we remember these moments. And I’m sure there have been many scientific studies defining why one moment is remembered, while others are forgotten. If we were to read these studies (and were able to understand the technical findings), we would think, “Oh. Ok. That makes scientific sense.” But alongside that evidence is this: I believe that we were created to remember those moments.

If we don’t remember those dark times with some degree of clarity, then we run the danger of losing our sense of gratitude.

This morning at church, we honored the First Responders in our community: Our firefighters. Our rescue personnel. Our local sheriff’s department. Our military. We invited them to join us for worship, in their uniforms, and we publicly thanked them.

Eric Spence, our worship pastor, opened the service by sharing a memory he has from that hellish day 15 years ago. He recalled that, as he watched events unfold on his TV, he was struck by the juxtaposition of hundreds and hundreds of people running away from the chaotic inferno of the towers…..

……while dozens of men in uniform–the firefighters, the policemen, the rescue workers, the first responders, the heroes—ran not away, but to Ground Zero. They had to have known at some level in their minds, that they could perish. They had to have known at some level in their souls, that what they would witness inside those buildings would be terrifying. But they ran the opposite direction of what common sense had to have been telling them.

They ran to those in desperate need.

It was a beautiful site this morning, looking out over the congregation, and up into the balcony, and seeing these men and women in uniform, with their families beside them. It was fantastic to see two of our own band members in uniform as they played their trumpet and trombone this morning. To begin the service, a video was shown that featured some of our church members sharing first-hand accounts of the impact first responders have had in their own lives.

Here’s the thing though–knowing these deputies, these lieutenants, these Fire Chiefs, these rescue workers, I am confident of this: not a one of them was comfortable with the thanks or the praise.

Why? Because it is not just a job to them. It is a calling. They don’t see themselves as heroes.

But, oh my friends, they are most definitely just that. They are heroes. They are our heroes.

I’ve never had a fire destroy my home. I’ve never had a medical emergency requiring rescue workers to provide me oxygen or life-saving medicines. Yesterday, I saw the movie “Sully” (by the way, fantastic movie.). I’ve never stood on the wing of a sinking airplane, in need of rescue from the frigid water by Police Scuba Divers.

Thank you, God.

But I am fully aware that one second in any one day, and that could be me–or one of my crew–or you–or one of your crew–in desperate need of their calm, professional, knowledgeable and effective assistance.

While I’ve never experienced such an acute life or death need, there was a day seven years ago, when a crime that had been committed came crashing through our world, shattering it into a million pieces. And on that day, I remember every detail of answering a phone call from our local sheriff’s department.

Because, just like we all remember where we were on that clear September morning 15 years ago, I remember where I was when I received the first call from the Sheriff’s department. I don’t remember much else of that day that sharply, but that phone call? I’ll never forget it. The sound the phone made. The color of my kitchen walls. The movie–Transformers–playing on the TV, in the living room.

And you know what? Even in that non-life threatening-yet-very-devastating situation, the officers at the Sheriff’s Department were first responders to my family’s dark day. We didn’t need fire hoses or CPR, but we needed those officers, all the same. Their calm, professional reassurance and take-charge actions helped me to settle down my shaking soul. They treated me with deep respect that day, and the days that followed. They cared–deeply cared–for my children….and that care carried on for months. Months. In fact, a year and a half later, they reached out and invited my smalls to participate in their local community outreach at Christmas, where they bring kids in to the local Wal-Mart for a “Shop-with-a-Cop” event. That was huge. And my kids loved it.

I am so grateful.

This morning as I saw these same personnel from the Sheriff’s office–faces that I remember sharply like I remember that phone call–enter our sanctuary in their uniforms, with their families, I realized that I had never personally told them “Thank you”. I may have said something in court, the day I had to testify, but I am not entirely sure if I did or did not. I know I had intentions to say something from the stand, to thank them. But that day is such a blur. I don’t remember much.

But this morning, 7 years later, I was able to briefly introduce myself, shake their hands, and tell them thank you. I should have before this day. I should not have waited for 7 years. But I’m grateful to have had the opportunity this morning, to do so.

And you know what? They deflected my words of gratitude and did what they do best: they expressed their concern and compassion for us, and asked how we were doing.

It was such a joy to be able to tell them this: We are doing so, very well. My crew is good. Incredibly good. God has been gracious. And one of the reasons why we are doing so well, is because they answered the call upon their lives, and were willing to be first responders to our dark, seemingly hopeless day. They did not run from our nightmare.

They ran to it, to stand by us.

I want to add this: there are other first responders, beyond the ones we typically recognize by their uniforms–I have known this full well in my life as well. Our pastoral staff and their families in those days were also first responders to our nightmare. And they often are–ministers are often the first ones called in a crises. They are called to the bedside of those who are dying. They are summoned in the middle of night, to sit with grieving parents who are worried about their child. They care for their congregants in the midst of our messy life and in the hardest nightmares.

And so the same thoughts hold true, for these ministry “first responders” and their families, as well as for my church and community and the York County School system, too–their care, compassion, and protection in those nightmare is also a huge reason why my crew is doing so well today. I will always be grateful.