Today I had the opportunity to meet up with an old neighbor for coffee. I first met her shortly after my husband and I got married when her and her husband moved in next door to us, and our paths have continued to cross even after we both moved on.
I met her today with her beautiful daughter, Evelyn, who is almost 12 weeks old now. What a gift! We recently hooked back up through facebook and after recent events, I have had this constant nudge to meet with her. You see, this friend has had three losses herself, one of which occured during the time we lived next door to one another and I have thought about her alot the past year or so. Hearing this winter that her dream of a baby was finally coming true I was elated. She frequently helped me out with my own son and I could see her instincts even then.
In addition to providing a little catching up, our time over coffee today was largely spent discussing our losses and how they affected each of our lives. No doubt they were very difficult on each of us, but we each had our own ways of dealing.
Something I felt compelled to ask her about before we parted ways, which was my primary question I had been wanting to ask her, was being a person of the faith I have always known her to have, how she encorperated her faith in her grief journey. Namely, how she was able to not only turn to but praise the same Lord that allowed for her children to die. Her answer was beautiful, and a great gift to me.
I have since this loss said on more then one occasion that I am a person that has been through a lot, that has endured a lot. And I have always managed to somehow emerge on top and in one piece. That is until now. This loss has left me with a very deep sense of brokeness. Truly a part of me has lost. My life forward will be different. I am different. One can't experience this kind of loss and not be. My life is now broken up as before the loss and after. That was a defining moment in my life. Again, what has made it so defining is how I have come through it feeling so broken. like I will never be whole again. But as Janell explained to me, perhaps this was precisely what was supposed to happen.
She sought the same wisdom from her sister after one of her losses and she gave the insight that perhaps Janell had to get to a point of complete brokeness in order to truly find God. This resignated in me quite deeply.
I am a very strong willed person. I like to be in control. I don't trust others to do things as well as I would or their ways. I fear the unknown and giving power to God fully at any time in my life has been something I have always struggled to do and never been able to. Sure, there have been many times I have thrown my hands up and said "I can't do this" but five minutes later somehow I dug deep and found it within myself to do it. I never had to trust God before because I was always able to trust me. In fact I have lived my whole life feeling like I was the only one whom I could trust and that's a scary thought because my perspective isn't always a good one. If I am going to be hurt I amgoing to be the one who hurts me. And so even in these trials, I didn't ever want to have the chance of being disappointed by God or not given or met with what I thought was right so I trusted- to a point- and then went back to relying on me. This has prevented me from ever having the kind of relationship with Christ that I have always desired, yet feared. Feared? Yes, feared. I say feared because I know that fully committing myself to the Lord means to fully and completely turn my life over to Him and trust in Him. What scares me about this is knowing that His will is not always mine. That He won't always make things turn out as I want and will even allow bad things to happen to me. It seems so messed up then as to why I would want to turn my life over to Him, and why that could be so scary for someone like me.
The reality, however, is that God's will is even more powerful then my own, and while He was patient with me for sometime, in my constant fight with Him over power and trust, that finally He did what a good Father would do and allowed his child to learn a great lesson. That is that He is in control of my life. That He is the one of whom to trust. And the truth is, as hard as it is to trust Him after this loss with so many why and how could you questions racing through my brain, the reality is that I have to trust Him and Him allowing my Liam to die at the stage he did was truly the one thing that could have gotten my attention in such a way. And got my attention He did. It was the only way He could break me in such a way that I truly could not emerge on my own. Can not emerge on my own. And for that I have had no choice but to turn my life over to Him in his grace and power and to trust that He has my life in His hands. It is the only way to emerge from my grief.
I recently read in a book about sorrow and grief being lent but joy being given and the difference. I want to share that with you now. "Sorrow is one of the things that are lent, not given. A thing that is lent may be taken away; a thing that is given is not taken away. joy is given; sorrow is lent. We are not our own, we are bought with a price... our sorrow is lent to us for just a little while that we may use it for eternal purposes. Then it will be taken away and everlasting joy will be our Father's gift to us, and the Lord God will wipe away all the tears from off all faces." - Amy Carmichael.
So how many of you want to be lent sorrow? I can't think of a one. But how wonderful that in this life and world where sorrow is inevitable, that we may have the assurance that it is only temporary. That we have instead this gift that is forever of joy. I don't know about you but I rather sorrow temporary and joy eternal rather then the other way around.
And so what am I getting at in all of this? Am I saying my journey is suddenly better? That I am suddenly past the death of my son? No, I am not saying that at all. In fact, I am still in the midst of my grief and mourning with many days of weaping behind and ahead of me. What I am saying though instead of looking at this loss and this journey as "the" thing that broke me and just feeling hopeless of ever feeling whole again, I feel like I was broken for a reason. I was broken that I may be able to finally open my heart up to God in a way I never have been before and to be able to trust Him to guide me out of this pit. I know He has plans for me. Plans that one day I may find joy again. But I also know I don't have to try to push or rush through this grief to get there before it runs out. No, my joy- His joy- the kind I am talking about- is waiting for me whenever I am ready to receive it. The joy of eternal life with my babies in Heaven.
And so my friends, in my brokeness, I have finally found that which can make me whole. And I want to thank Janell for that, and I want to thank my dear Lord in Heaven for that. Is this how I wanted for this to happen? No. Not so much. But sometimes He withholds something from us that one day He will give us something so much greater. It is just as humans, with our blinders on, we can not always see that.
And so that is my hope, that in a life with the Lord there will be an abundance. That with these sorrows will come a joy and comfort that I have never known.
Finally, before I go, as if to "seal" His work through Janell, when I stood up to say goodbye to her at the coffee shop I peered over her shoulder to see a framed picture on the wall of a rainbow reaching over a clouded sky and landscape. I smiled to myself. He has made a promise to never leave or forsake me and He took that moment with Janell to remind me of that very thing. To remind me of the promise of everlasting peace in Him. Hmm.. Great are the ways of the Lord.
Amy
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