Four months is too
little, we let her go, we had no sudden healing
To think that
providence would take a child from her mother while she prayed is appalling
Who told us we'd be
rescued? What has changed and why should
we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this
happens to us who have died to live, it's unfair.
Yes, it all seems very unfair. During my morning devotions I was reading
through the book of Job and thinking on how many things in life are just
unfair. The age old question of 'Why do
bad things happen?'
This is what it means
to be held, how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you
survive, this is what it is to be loved and to know that the promise was when
everything fell, we'd be held.
How soon we forget His promises. Not that life would be easy, but that it
WOULD BE HARD. He promises that to those
who love Him. Not in such a way like a threat or snide remark, but in
love. Life on earth will be hard, full
of hurt and sorrows, but those that are faithful even to death will be given
the crown of life! (Revelation 2:10).
As life goes on and discussions arise about some of the
things we went through there is usually a collective sigh at the end of the
story that ends with a "Wow." or "you should write a book."
My response has always been that we need to get through it first, we need to
see what's on the other side, what tomorrow holds.
The wise hand opens
slowly to lillies of the valley and tomorrow.....
Tomorrow. It is
here. We are normal again. We are living every day lives of hustle and
bustle. Work, school, activities that
threaten to overwhelm our calendar. Children getting sick with normal things like
colds, sore muscles, messy house. We
even finished paying off our medical bills last month. These were the things I longed for.
Yet in the world around us, the families we know and love,
the suffering continues. As some say,
"it's our turn, I guess."
There is a certain panic, survival mode and numbness to the world around
you, that can only be understood when you are in this thing of
"held". There is a longing for
the lives of others and desperately wanting not to be compared to as the tough
case at that time.
If hope is born of
suffering, if this is only the beginning, can we not wait for one hour watching
for our Savior?
On the other side there is a greater empathy for the whole
of human suffering. There is an
understanding that can only be gained through suffering and watching and
praying for our Savior.
This is what it means
to be held, how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you
survive, this is what it is to be loved and to know that the promise was when
everything fell, we'd be held.
And now the normal.
Let us never forget that it is through our sufferings that He draws us
closer to Him. It is through our sufferings that we are given the opportunity
to participate in something beyond ourselves - glorifying God, through our
sufferings. During this time of Lent as
we remember what Christ suffered ultimately for all of us, let us ever be
thankful for our normal. Our normal
everyday lives of bills, aches and pains, chores and messes, joys and sorrows;
and let us be thankful that through it all we are held.
