Normal and Held

In one week we will celebrate what would be the 4th birthday of my niece, Samantha.  Since Micaiah was only 10 months older than she was it is easy to imagine what she'd be like now as far as development age and activities.  I always think that the two of them would've been best buddies and picture what the mischief times two would be.....Most days there is a general acceptance of what has past - months in a wheelchair, weeks of sitting in hospitals, both chairs and beds, moves, pain, decisions.  I can't even let myself go there very long or the memories overwhelm me.  But now looking back the lyrics of a Natalie Grant song still rise in my mind.....(somewhat reworded)

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.