Again

Our family has been struck again, less than a year after our Kristina died, and I am reminded of how much I hate cancer, of how much I hate death. 

To an outsider, it may not seem quite as much the tragedy as before. This is my Papa, after all, my eighty-six year old grandpa. He is not fighting for the chance to raise his children or wishing for a chance to grow old with his spouse after only a few years of marriage. He has lived a good and full life. 

And yet it is a tragedy. Death itself is a tragedy, and while I am tempted to rail at God against the ugliness of it all, deep inside my heart I know that it is our sin, our rebellion that let death into our world in the first place and it is God's mercy that gave us life again.

Cancer and death are tragedy, they are ugly. For our family, this cancer is as ugly as any other. Yes, there is difference between a twenty-six year old and an eighty-six year old. And yet, I am greedy. 

I am greedy for more time. I want to yell at God, "NO! It is not enough! Thirty-four years with my Papa is not enough. I want more time! I want him to meet this baby growing inside of me. I want all of my children to know and remember him. You did not give me enough time!" 

All this while stomping my foot like the child that I am.

Yet my heart has been changed through Kristina's struggle and death. I have learned a little more about Who God is and who I am in relation to Him. I have learned about obedience in the midst of the ugly. 

And I have learned that I have a choice in all of this. I can choose to blame God, letting my anger and grief drive me away from Him, or I can choose to be obedient and thank Him, clinging to Him and letting Him be all that I need.

So at least for today (I know I still have disobedience, some yelling and foot-stomping inside of me for another day), I will choose this:

Thank You, Abba, for the gift of my Papa and my Gram. 

Thank You for giving me so many years with them, years of such close relationship and of so many beautiful times with them.

Thank You for giving them so many talents and abilities and for giving them the desire to teach and share those skills with me.

Thank You for their wisdom, for all that I have learned from them, for all of the wisdom that I now have stored in my own heart.

Thank You most of all for making their hearts like Yours. Thank You for allowing me to see You in them, to see in their lives how You want me to live. Thank You for showing me through them how to live faithfully as a child of Yours, as a spouse and as a parent.

Thank You for the beauty that is their lives. 

Thank You, Abba, for Your grace.

His Invisible Hand

Our family has been learning over the past few years as we experienced some truly ugly things. We've learned about who God is and what He asks of us even when we don't understand or like what is happening.

My learning will never be complete (for which I am grateful...I'm one of those odd ones who loves to study and learn!) and I recently was struck by yet another lesson as our church studied through the book of Ruth.

As I studied Ruth and as I thought about this book as compared with other books in the Bible, I noticed that God seems to work in two very different ways.

God sometimes uses His visible hand of miracle to accomplish His purpose. Think about the parting of the Red Sea and the manna provided from heaven. Think about the healing of Jairus' daughter and the feeding of the 5,000. 

God also sometimes uses His invisible hand of Providence to accomplish His purpose. This is what happens in Ruth. Israel is in the period of the judges which means that they are bouncing around between brief periods of stability and long periods of rebellion, being conquered by foreign armies, and experiencing severe famines.

Here are Naomi and Ruth: they are widows, they are childless, they are in a foreign land, they are going home to Israel not knowing what they will find.

Naomi, especially, knew the traditions of her God. Perhaps Ruth had heard the stories. The miracle stories of Noah saved from the flood, of Israel rescued from Egypt. I imagine they may have wished for that visible hand of miracle.

Instead, they got hard work gleaning in a field, an owner of that field who just happened to stop by and act with kindness, the surprise of that very owner being a close relative, a desperate and courageous request from Ruth. The result? A marriage, a baby, perhaps a bit of stability. Several small blessings along the way, but certainly no miraculous raising of the dead.

And yet.

From that marriage and that child came the greatest king that Israel would ever know, bringing wealth and stability and godliness to the nation.

From that marriage and that child came the greatest King that our world would ever know, bringing rescue and mercy and grace to all the nations.

My honest confession? I want the miracle. I don't want the invisible hand of Providence. When Kristina was fighting for her life, we begged for miraculous healing. That's not what we got.

And yet.

Even though the miracle is what I wanted, I can still trust in God's unseen hand. I can know that God is still working, even though we, like Naomi and Ruth, may not see the end of the story.

Even though I am now pleading for another miracle, I am so grateful to be assured that while I pray out my sadness, my anger, and my bitterness, God is right now at work healing hurts not even felt yet and creating answers to problems I haven't even yet encountered.

Abba. Thank You.



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art credit: Whither Thou Goest painting used with gracious permission by artist Sandy Freckleton Gagon

special thanks to our Pastor for his thoughts on Ruth

What will you do when God says "no"?

What do you do when you don't get your way?

My eldest screams with a red hot rage and sobs tears of hurt and disappointment.

As much as I would like to hold my head up high and speak with condescension about the ways of a child, I can't. Instead, I will bow my head with shame and confess that, even if I don't do it out loud or in front of people, I have much the same reaction in my deepest places.

I received another "no" from God this week.

It really hurt. Yet another of my well-laid plans was swept away with the dust of a hope.

I do gain deep peace and joy from knowing beyond a doubt that the only reason that God said "no" was because that wasn't what was best.

And, just as I wrote recently, my heart still grieves.

There is a piece of me, that child that can't seem to grow up, that wants to shout and rage and stamp its foot and demand a "yes" from God.

The desire, the temptation, is not wrong. As I often tell my eldest, the feeling is not wrong, but what you choose to do can be either wise or foolish.

So what did I choose to do?

This time (I wish that I could say "every time") I chose what was wise.

With tears, I praised God.

I thanked Him for telling me "no" because I trust that it was best, that it was done out of love.

Then I went to church and worshiped.

You make all things work together for my good.

You stay the same through the ages,

Your love never changes.

There may be pain in the night, but joy comes in the morning.

And when the oceans rage,

I don't have to be afraid

Because I know that You love me.

Your love never fails.

My whole life I place in Your hands.

God of mercy, humbled I bow down

In Your presence at Your throne.

I called, You answered

And You came to my rescue

And I want to be where You are.

You stood before my failure,

Carried the cross for my shame.

My sin weighed upon Your shoulders,

My soul now to stand.

So I'll stand,

With arms high and heart abandoned,

In awe of the One who gave it all.

I turned my eyes back to Jesus and gained back my perspective. No matter to what God says "no", it is so small compared to the huge thing to which He has already said "yes": allowing us to become His children through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. He has given us everything, and so...

I'll stand

My soul, Lord, to You surrendered.

All I am is Yours.

art credit: 

songs are from Your Love Never Fails (Jesus Culture); Came To My Rescue (Hillsong United); The Stand (Hillsong United) 

sketching is The Three Crosses by Rembrandt

If I hurt, am I really trusting?

My eldest has a new fear.

Any time my husband gets into the driver's seat of our car while I am still out of the car, my eldest is convinced that he is about to leave me. She begins sobbing and yelling, "Daddy, don't leave Mommy! Daddy, don't leave Mommy!".

The usual response is, "Sweetheart, have I ever left Mommy?!"

Apparently, that has nothing to do with anything.

I sometimes get frustrated with the apparent lack of trust that my daughter has in both of her parents, regardless of how many times we have proven ourselves to her.

"Why won't you trust me?" I ask her. "Have I ever (you fill in the blank!) before?"

When I stop to think about it, though, I completely understand. So often I decide that this is the time that God is not going to care for me, no matter how many times before He has proven His goodness and His love.

How many times does He have to prove Himself to me before I will finally trust that He will do what is best for me, even when I can't see it?

Recently, though, I have been struggling with a different sort of trust issue.

While Kristina struggled for life and in the early days of Mike facing life as a single parent, God helped me to work though how we trust Him in the darkest times.

Now there are different hard times.

I want to publish these words of mine. So far, God says no.

We want another baby to add to the beauty and joy of our family. So far, God says no.

I thought I was trusting Him in these things. After all, if I could trust Him through horrible pain and ugly death, surely I can trust Him in this also.

I trust that if He is saying no to my desires it is because He has something infinitely more beautiful in mind.

Yet it still hurts.

Why does it still hurt if I trust that God is love?

How can my heart feel as though it is breaking if I trust that God is good?

If I hurt when God says no, does that mean that I am not truly trusting?

This. This is what my heart and my head have been struggling with.

Then one night I was praying while nursing my youngest and God brought to my mind the image of Jesus in the Garden, praying so fervently His sweat fell like drops of blood, praying in anguish that He would not have to face what was coming.

And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

It was as though God was laying a soothing hand on my troubled heart and telling me to look at His Son.

Of all who have ever walked this earth, Jesus trusted God. Jesus trusted that God is good, that God is love, that whatever God chooses is the very best, most beautiful thing.

And yet He still hurt. He still prayed in anguish and cried out to God to save Him.

So perhaps I am still trusting after all. Perhaps it is okay to hurt when God's plans turn out to be something other than what I desire.

I will try not to doubt myself so much. I will try to allow myself to weep, to cry out to God in pain and disappointment, while still knowing that

He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all -- how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?

art credit: Gethsemane by Carl Bloch

A Psalm of Love

Holy. Beautiful. Glory.

Creator. Author. Majesty.

King and Lord. Humility and Servant.

Love.

Wise beyond my wisdom.

Knowing beyond my knowledge.

Perfect plan beyond what I can comprehend.

Love.

Giver of all that I grasp too tightly.

Sacrificer of all, that I may see Your face.

Abundant mercy and grace, I rest in your delight in me.

Love.

For all that comes before,

When I cannot understand,

Still I will cling to Your power, Your goodness and

Your Love.

What You Should Do Next

What should we do now?

How should we respond?

When life seems to be running rapidly into a dead end

When we feel carved out and emptied by the rivers of this world's realities

When the weight of our pain threatens to crush

When our hearts are pitted and scarred by pain, anguish, shame

What should we do?

Yes, we continue to obey, to follow the signs.

To what purpose? To what end?

The men who walked in the fire told a king that even if God refused to rescue, they would continue to obey.

The man who lost all but his life declared that even if God took the last thing remaining to him, he would continue to trust.

Why do we obey, why do we trust even when we cannot seem to find the light?

Listen.

Listen to the Word speak.

Listen to what the Word says as He is drawing very near to His own darkness.

"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!"

The Glory of God our Father.

Out of the rocks, His glory bursts forth.

Out of the dead and the dying, His beauty shines out.

All praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Father, glorify Your name!

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